Current
by Sora Tsuiki
Summary: The first time on the bridge, the Kyuubi broke free of the seal, if just a little. The second time on the bridge, the Nine-Tailed Fox brought something else with it. "Kakashi-sensei," she began, attempting to focus in on the blurry illusion. It was of a man, holding an orange mask, with one red eye blazing. "Who is Obito?" A different kind of time travel. Fem!Naru AU Slow build
1. Current

**WARNING: There will be character death in this story. :'( tears.**

**A/N: Hey guys… some of you might hate me for this (another story), but honestly this one has been bouncing in my head for ages and I've been a little stressed with characterization for my other story, Contracted, as well as the next step for TwentyTwenty, my OC story. So, to take a break from those two, here's another little side project that I'll be taking part in.**

**This IS a fem!naru story, and it will be treated like that's the most normal thing (because Naruto has been girl since birth, in this world). Pairings are currently undecided, though no Sasuke or Haku, so don't get your hopes up during this chapter no matter what.**

**Also, for this fic… I really want to take it to places that haven't been seen before and change the story into something completely new; a massive AU Because of that, in reviews or PMs, I encourage posting things you wish Kishimoto expanded upon in the manga or ideas you kind of wish you saw more. Or even better, if you wanna PM me and bounce ideas back and forth, it would be lovely! I don't have much of a plan yet for this story except I want it to be different :) Please feel no offense if I don't use your ideas, as I will most likely try to bounce off them instead of using them straight.**

**Unfortunately, as many reviewers pointed out... this chapter is slow because it's mainly canon (completely canon, almost) and I apologize for that but bear with me on this first one and give it a chance!**

**So, outside of that little rant, I'm proud to announce my new story: Current.**

**Please enjoy**

***Don't Own Naruto***

_Current: defined as belonging to a present time, being in progress now or being prevalent during a distinctive time. Also can be synonymous with circulating, running or flowing, passing from one to another. A general tendency; a steady onward movement._

Naruto would admit to herself honestly that she wasn't the sharpest kunai in the pouch, especially when compared to her teammate Sakura. That's probably why she hadn't thought about attacking from the outside in tandem with her other teammate, Sasuke. Neither was she the strongest or the most skilled, as Sasuke had proved himself to be, which is probably why they hadn't found a way out of their predicament yet. But, at the very least, she was hardy and determined and definitely stubborn, which was definitely why the girl was still standing, tired and beaten and impaled with dozens of senbon, sending clone after clone after clone at the damned enemy, even as they continuously died with increasing speed.

After all, she was Uzumaki Naruto, and she never backed down.

With a pop, the last of her clone minions poofed out of the realm of existence, leaving her and Sasuke still trapped within the enemy's jutsu of ice mirrors.

Panting, Naruto let a growl tear through her throat. Brushing back her red hair from her eyes, her gaze darted between the mirrors, fully intent of finding some kind of clue that would tell her which one the enemy was in. But none of the mirrors gave any hint, and the white porcelain mask worn by the enemy shinobi effectively blocked out any emotion or tell Naruto could observe.

Sakura and Kakashi-sensei were outside of the construct, protecting the bridge builder and fighting Zabuza, who _should_ have been dead, and the mist from the battle blanketed the ground of their fighting space as well. At least if the mist was still there, it meant Zabuza hadn't completed his mission.

A light tapping noise came from all around Naruto in an echo, her ears perking at the sound. Turning with a stumble as her body protested the movements, she could see the ninja somehow retrieve more senbon—Naruto still wondered where the shinobi got all the weapons, even now—and slide them in between his fingers in an ominous sign that the next volley would soon begin.

What could she do to break free? Naruto was certain that, given the chance, she could slip a clone out of the dome to attack from the outside and break the dome or at least use the clones as a distraction, but it wasn't working out too well.

After all, the enemy ninja had just taken down her seventh barrage of clones.

"Dobe, try it once more, I think I have him this time!" Sasuke panted without looking Naruto's way. Instead, his intense, obsidian gaze was focused ahead of him, towards one of numerous reflections in a mirror. For him, also, a blank mask stared right back, threateningly fingering several senbon between fingers with ease and without tiredness. Sasuke and Naruto, who idiotically came charging in "to the rescue," had been trapped in the enemy nin's mirror dome for over fifteen minutes already, and Sasuke had felt the wear and tear of battle almost seven minutes ago. Now, his chakra was proving to be a very limited resource, something that didn't bode well.

The Uchiha knew this fight had to end soon, and he needed Naruto's help to achieve that.

Sasuke had no need to glance towards his teammate to know that the Uzumaki's pointer and middle fingers were held resolutely in a cross, despite the small rivulets of blood prickling from where needles penetrated her form. Sasuke had no need to glance sideways to see the sweat smeared across the unusually solemn face of the Uzumaki, her short and perpetually unruly red hair now matted down tight to her head. She, too, was out of breath, which was saying something.

Naruto slid her eyes over to her self-declared rival, eyes shining with determination, as she hollered with a ruffled annoyance, "Don't tell me what to do, teme!" Despite her words, however, the chakra was already flowing through her coils, surging upwards and towards her hands before collecting in her fingers. The redhead rolled her sore shoulders back, heaving a light sigh when she heard a sharp crack echo across the bridge's expanse.

She shuffled her feet.

"Please, just surrender," the monotonous voice echoed from around the two, "I do not wish to harm you any further." Neither genin answered the enemy, but a growl from Naruto's direction said it all.

_Fuck that._

Simultaneously, Naruto expelled the built up energy from her chakra nodes with a blush of smoke and Sasuke began to move his fingers through hand signs he had known since he was seven. Twenty clones pulled into the realm of existence, and without wasting any time, they leapt in all directions. Like a synchronized dance, each redheaded copy cocked her fist back with a roar.

Sasuke's fingers ended in a tiger seal, his heated chakra licking his at his throat as he continuously stoked it, waiting. Naruto flashed a glance at Sasuke, confusion flitting across her face when she realized he hadn't let the fire loose yet. But then she felt it, the first death of her clone mob followed by a soft poof, and was distracted from her mental questioning.

Naruto grit her teeth, barely dodging a senbon needle aimed at her shoulder in time and skidding across the ground painfully; scrapes were better than a senbon after all. She rolled away, dodging more and more projectiles as her muscles cried for reprieve.

Another clone down, and another. What was that teme doing, ogling the damn nin's skills or something? Another dive to the side, sharp projectile grazing her cheek, adding a fourth whisker mark to her usual three and drawing even more blood than what had already soaked her clothes. Naru sneered.

That masked bastard was just lucky she didn't scar, otherwise he would have been long dead by now for ruining a girl's face, believe it!

Throwing a kunai in a random direction with the hope of getting lucky and stabbing the enemy in the leg, Naruto was instead treated to another volley of senbon in her direction, a volley that she couldn't completely dodge. Several ice needles stuck out from her left thigh, one hitting higher up at her hip. The Uzumaki girl didn't take the time to pull them from her body, instead mentally cursing as she collapsed to the ground.

If the teme was going to do something, he better do it already. She only cared for being a pincushion for so long.

And then, she heard the shout: "Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" The heat seared past her, just a foot away, and for a quick second the shinobi's reflection appeared almost startled before the senbon stopped and they retreated back to the ice mirrors. None of the clones remained, and Naruto had several more needles sticking into her, but none of that mattered.

A ferocious grin split Naruto's face when not even the resulting steam from the jutsu nor the ever present chakra-saturated mist could stop her from noticing that the enemy's blue robes were singed.

Guffawing, Naruto taunted from the ground, "How do you like that, you dumb masked person? I call it the Uzumaki Special!" She swiped at the blood trickling down her face and rubbed her nose with a wide grin.

"It wasn't even your plan, dobe," Sasuke grunted, flicking his eyes from mirror to mirror in an attempt to locate the real body. Not that it was any use: if he could have done that in the first place, they wouldn't be in this mess.

Naruto scrunched up her face in her version of a pout, which honestly looked more like a grimace than anything, but the two Konoha genin didn't offer any more repartee when the masked shinobi began to speak again. "You are… getting better, but you don't have a chance of escaping," the voice whispered, achingly close, "If possible, I don't want to have to kill you, nor do I want you to have to kill me. However, if you come at me…" The voice trailed off, simmering in the resounding silence.

Naruto whipped her head around, eyes wide. She could have sworn that was said next to her ear that time.

However, at the reminder that their sensei was not only fighting right then, but also fighting someone of Zabuza's caliber Sasuke's pride in his hit dwindled and Naruto's face grew darker. Kakashi-sensei could hold his own, she was sure, but what if Zabuza decided to go straight for Tazuna and Sakura instead? They had stooped to kidnapping Tsunami, sending bullish and disgusting men who were thinking of-

Naruto felt the anger simmer in her stomach.

"Naruto," Sasuke spoke up again, "can you do it again?" His eyes were still fixed upon one of the mirrors, narrowing minutely. The Uchiha's voice was calm and steady, though Naruto could see his erratic breathing in the way his chest pumped up and down, attempting to regain the air and energy needed to keep fighting.

She felt that she should be asking him that, but why wound his pride now when there would be plenty of time later. She stood on shaky legs, removing one or two hindering needles.

"Of course. Who do you think you're talking to, Sasuke?" she instead asked, running her fingers through sweat-soaked hair with a grimace. Most would assume that it was a rhetorical question and, like Sasuke, remain silent, but Naruto obviously felt the need to answer so the world could hear. "You're talking to the next Hokage!" she screeched with a confident grin, once again forcing chakra through her system and into her hands and outwards.

"Kage Bushin no Jutsu!"

The area of the demonic ice domes was flooded with a tsunami of orange and red leaping girls, all yelling and singing their prowess. And then the slaughter began once again. This time, the senbon came in large waves, taking out three or four clones at a time, dwindling the numbers. More than once had Naruto stumbled out of the way of said projectiles with a snarl, feet weighing her down in her exhaustion, and more than once had her clones covered for her, either with kawarimi or by playing human meat shield, or human shadow shield she supposed.

After all, summoning about nine rounds of mini armies in shadow clones was a tiring feat, even for her.

Naru flicked her gaze towards her teammate as she rolled away from another set of thrown senbon. He was utterly focused, not even moving and forcing her clones to jump in front of several senbon attacks to save him from his voluntary immobility. Whoever called him a prodigy had to be on something, because in her opinion standing still in the middle of a dome of doom mirrors was stupid even to her, and she was dead last in the academy.

Yet, as the Uzumaki girl watched the Uchiha's gaze in fascination, her eyes widened.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" Sasuke hissed for the nth time since they were caught, however it was his first time with a victorious smirk upon his face. The grand sphere of chakra-bred flames hadn't simply brushed against the fake hunter nin this time, but rather consumed the shinobi's right half, forcing the enemy to take the time to douse their arm in water to counteract the flame before entering the mirrors once more.

Naruto watched as Sasuke prepared to let a kunai fly the second his jutsu was free from his lips, and she hurriedly followed on blind faith. She couldn't see the enemy jumping from mirror to mirror like Sasuke explained he did, but with assured grace the dark-haired boy threw the projectile and she followed in suit.

The girl blinked when the masked shinobi phased into existence in time for her to witness him twist in midair to deflect on knife while the other grazed his exposed arm, bright red from almost-burns. With a small halo of blood exploding with the movement, the shinobi was then gone, content to find solace once again in his ice constructs, disappearing. But the splatter of blood laid heavily, glaringly red against the cool grey stone beneath them.

Naruto's face pulled up in a bright and mischievous grin, whisker marks stretching to make room for all the teeth she was showing. They were just getting started.

As if sensing his gaze, Naruto turned to make eye contact with Sasuke, who had fallen to a knee to catch his breath. The look he was giving her said all that needed to be said between them as they both shifted into defensive stances, waiting for the next onslaught. The shinobi could waste their chakra away by concealing themselves as Naruto broke down every singled cursed mirror if they wanted, or he could attack. But when he attacked… Naruto rolled her shoulders and cracked her neck.

He better be ready for hell.

"Hey teme," Naruto chirped through her heavy breaths of air while her eyes roved her surroundings in hope of catching a glimpse of movement, "congrats on the eyes." She chuckled when Sasuke tenderly reached a hand to his eyes, touching them as if they had gone missing.

"Sharingan…" the masked enemy muttered, and Naruto could have sworn there was a bit of awe in his voice.

If it weren't for the dire straits they were in now, she would have called this a moment to take a picture: the ever stoic and brooding Uchiha Sasuke looked practically dumbfounded for a moment, jaw hanging and eyes widened in a weird look of happiness and pride. She figured he almost looked like a normal human instead of the arrogant asshole he truly was. At least until the usual arrogant smirk came back to grace their company.

Naruto laughed, ignoring the danger they were in, and her face split into a grin. Pulling a couple senbon from her body, Naruto slipped her orange jacket off her shoulders to wipe at her sweat-soaked face before dropping it to the ground, leaving her in her black tank top. "I'm telling everyone about that super uncool face you made just now," Naruto teased, tightening the bandages going down each arm resolutely. Her muscles felt stiff and sluggish, exhaustion setting in as if to ossify her arms. There was a tight burn in her throat as her body screamed for more and more air.

"As if," Sasuke grunted, though he was unable to mask the jubilation in his voice. He also, however, couldn't mask the pure exhaustion weighing his words and body down.

Naruto wasn't sure how much longer he could go on with this, let alone how much longer _she_ could. Her body ached and burned, and it honestly took way too much energy to simply not sway or fall. If she took another step, Naruto wasn't sure she could take a second. She winced as her arm spasmed on its own, upsetting on cluster of needles in her bicep. She clenched her hand in an attempt to stop it.

Through eyelids threatening to fall shut, her gaze slid over to Sasuke's form, still smirking despite her words as he searched the mirrors with his dojutsu. He looked as if he had gotten a second wind, energy and chakra thrumming to be used. She laughed again, closing her eyes briefly for a foxy grin. "And when we get out of this-"

It was the sudden splash of warmth that halted her words and the grunt of that made her open her eyes. But it was what she saw that made her break.

Sasuke was looming in front of her, shielding her from a bombardment of senbon that now sunk deep into his body as she stared at his back. Blood dripped down his form in steady streams from the needles perforating his body. They stuck into his neck, his chest, his abdomen, and all over his limbs. There was even a needle that sat precariously close to his new found eyes, one that moved up and down when the Uchiha blinked. Sasuke stumbled, but remained standing.

"Wh-why?" Naruto asked, falling to her knees.

He was bleeding, and Naruto knew that blood was on her as well, sprinkled lightly across her face and neck. She could smell it.

However, Sasuke didn't answer her question, instead taking his time to flicker his gaze back into Naruto's eyes with a contented smirk.

"What's with that stupid face, dobe?" he asked rather than answering the redhead's question. Another sway, but his feet anchored firmly onto the ground to hold him up. Naruto couldn't look away, and she wouldn't, from his back and the Uchiha crest stitched into the fabric.

"Why?" Naruto demanded again, trembling. "Why would you save me?" She felt a fresh tear slip down her cheek.

There was a pause, and in the back of Naruto's mind, her instincts were telling her to pay attention to the killer in their midst, not the dying comrade. But Naruto couldn't and she wouldn't. Instead she numbly stared.

"I hated you," Sasuke proclaimed with a pained smile. When he spoke, blood was released from his mouth the pour down his chin. Coughing with a wince, the boyappeared almost pensive for a moment before a few stray tears fell from his own eyes. Eyes the same color of the blood flowing from his body. Eyes he had just awoken, taking another step towards his goal and ambition. Eyes that softened while focusing on her. "I hated you all, for being happy and for having what I don't," he whispered hoarsely.

Naruto's breathe puffing outwards erratically and in panic. "I didn't ask for your help!" It was a desperate screech, accusing almost. Why… How could he…?

Sasuke sighed, closing his eyes only to open them up as obsidian. "I don't know," the boy confessed. "My body just moved on its own…" His face was losing the peacefulness, instead scrunching up in pain and fatigue. His breathing began to slow, little by little, until Naruto could barely see his shoulders and chest rise. She reached a hand forward in fear.

Then a violent cough, blood bubbling from between his lips, Sasuke forced out a few more words with his eyes up to the sky. They were pondering, almost nostalgic in how peaceful he sounded as he said, "That man… My brother, I told myself I wouldn't die until I killed him…" Closing his eyes again, Sasuke muttered just loud enough to be a breath passing through his lips, "Don't die, too."

And then he fell in Naruto's arms.

"Jumping without hesitation to save a precious person despite knowing it was a trap," the masked shinobi intoned with a certain amount of sadness, "he is a shinobi that deserves respect. You have my apologies."

When Naruto didn't answer, the ninja melted out of the mirror, his sandals tapping solid ground before speaking again. "Is this your first death of a friend?" he asked curiously, but still not a response.

Naruto's body was bent over her teammates in mourning, shaking and trembling in sadness. Naruto hugged him closer, barely minding the needles sticking out of Sasuke's body.

"Shut up," Naruto whispered, staring down at the restful face of her comrade. Brushing a careful hand through his hair, Naruto commanded a trembling hand to remove the senbon near Sasuke's eye. She needed to protect his precious eyes like he would have wanted: he was always grossly prideful of that stupid clan of his and their eyes.

The eyes that could see the future, people had said, and remember everything they had seen. He had always told her, tauntingly, that when he got the sharingan she would have no chance in getting even close to his power.

"This is the shinobi way; the truth."

"Shut up!" she roared, clenching her fists and eyes, attempting not to cry and failing miserably. A sob fluttered past her lips without her permission.

She had hated him, too, and his damned arrogance. Everyone admired him, yet he always brushed them off. He had the skills she dearly wished for every night, yet wouldn't accept anyone's praise. He was an orphan, just like her, alone in the world with a dream he had to achieve, yet he died saving her. Because she couldn't do anything.

No. Sasuke died because of _him._

Naruto felt something break in her, something give way, but she embraced it when the power and anger surged throughout her body like poison.

Sasuke was dead because _he_ killed him.

The malevolent heat pulsed, expelling the needles from her body and sealing up the holes and scratches. Naruto felt a burn in her eyes that went further than tears, and searing pain in her fingers as things cracked and rearranged. A sharp sting spread across her gums as her teeth grew and sharpened, splitting a think cut in her lips that quickly sealed shut.

He was going to fucking die.

With an explosive burst of chakra, the energy curled around her body as if a small tornado and pulled at her shirt and pants. Naruto's crimson hair whipped around her head as if a bloody halo, and she raised her face so her eyes could meet the mask. They were crimson with slit pupils; they were primal. As one last tear made a clear track through the dirt and blood on her face, Naruto jolted forward on all fours.

Kill, she thought angrily, roar ripping from her throat in an ethereal scream. He killed one of hers, so she was to kill him, that was how the world works. That was how she worked.

Her claws scraped the ground as Naruto pounced at the masked shinobi attempting to escape to the mirrors, but this time he was too slow. This time Naruto was faster and this time Naruto was the predator and nothing brought more vengeful happiness to the redheaded genin than that.

Gripping a fistful of the enemy's battle kimono, Naruto flipped him over her shoulder and violently into the ground, small cracks forming underneath the pressure. The shinobi's moan in pain was like music to Naruto's ears. Just one more small step for Sasuke.

Sharp canines were exposed in a cold, malevolent smile on Naruto's face. Oh yes, he would suffer.

And that's all Naruto could think about. Images and wishes for the person below her to be at the mercy of her power and for her hatred to run free. A blurred face with red eyes and black hair, smirking with self-assured pride, shimmered across her vision before another moan sloughed through her being. A wave of dark pleasure rippled up her, and Naruto had to force herself not to bite her lip in ecstasy.

Yes, death for the moronic meat bag who had dared upset her and attack her kin. A sharp elbow to the shoulder, and an agonized yelp from behind the mask sang to her blood. Naruto felt like fluffing up her fur in pleasure.

Her eyes locked on to her quarry with animosity and lust.

While reaching for her prey again, Naruto watched as the enemy scrambled hastily to his feet and jumped away, hurling senbon at her. However, Naruto simply opened her mouth and roared.

High-pitched and screeching, like several different voices screaming for mercy, the sound was accompanied with a shock wave of chakra that blasted the needles away in all directions. The pulse of chakra also pushed the masked nin, attempting to flee, directly into one of his mirrors.

Still, the ninja was granted no respite as Naruto quickly launched after him, arm cocked back, thick whiskers full and thick and stretched with a growl, blazing crimson eyes narrowed in sorrow and hate, and a spinning blue ball of swirling chakra humming in her hand.

The shinobi didn't even have time to widen his eyes in surprise as he flew, spinning, away from the now shattered mirror. All at once, the dome collapsed in a cacophony of glittering shards, raining down onto the bridge's ground with the tinkling of a wind chime. If one hadn't known that it was the result of a deadly battle, it could have been described as beautiful and melodic.

When the last shard found rest upon the bridge, silence blanketed the area just as thickly as Zabuza's chakra-induced fog. Only the far away sound of metal kissing metal swam across the air, and the enemy shinobi dare not make a sound, else risk the wrath of the tiny redheaded berserker.

After a lapse in battle, a time in which the fake hunter ninja utilized to assess the injuries and plan for a counterattack, the hateful presence slowly diminished, whittling away into nothingness. Even the unnerving red glow that had exuded from the Konoha genin's being had begun to die down until nothing was left but the light of a clouded sun. However, he knew that the redhead wasn't dead or gone.

Hesitantly rising to his feet, the enemy shinobi placed tender fingers on his mask, feathering light touches across the surface. He winced when he felt a shallow indent, carved into the porcelain as a circular pattern.

That girl was strong; he knew he couldn't beat her. He had failed his master and for this, he should be killed. The shinobi searched his jutsu's wreckage intently, waiting for her figure to appear and take his life.

_C_U_R_R_E_N_T_

Her head felt funny, Naruto realized after picking herself up from the ground. Bits and pieces of what appeared to be glass were embedded into her palms and dusted throughout her hair.

Brushing the tiny knives off her palms, Naruto paused. Examining the frosted shards that were cold to the touch, she realized that the slivers were ice.

Brows drawing together in confusion, Naruto looked around only to be gazing into a thick wall of impenetrable mist, which was weird since mist in Konoha was pretty much unheard of.

A splitting wave of pain tore through her head and Naruto groaned, closing her eyes. The ache moved down her neck and across her body in an agonizing pulse as images flashed behind her eyelids. A great dome made up of several mirrors. A masked shinobi staring at her. Sasuke sitting on a tree branch, flipping a kunai on his finger with a triumphant smirk. An old man with a straw hat, pouring booze down his throat with nervous abandon.

Right, they were on protection detail for Tazuna, and she and Sasuke were fighting-

Her eyes snapped open. Sasuke!

Panic springing through her veins, Naruto clawed her way up from the ground, never bothering when more ice shards bit into her exposed and aching skin. The sudden climb to standing had left her head spinning and her mind woozy, but through the dots and blinking lights usurping her vision Naruto squinted her eyes to search the vicinity for her teammate.

They were fighting that masked hunter nin—no wait! Fake hunter nin who had helped Zabuza who was currently fighting her sensei! She needed to find him so that they could help protect the bridge builder!

On swaying legs that threatened to collapse any moment—why did everything hurt so much? And why did her head decide to torture her right now?—Naruto's sandaled feet shuffled through the ice debris.

"Oi, teme!" Naruto called loudly, wincing at the sound. The noise pierced straight through her ears and sent a fresh stab of pain to her head.

Kami, what had _happened_? Naruto scrunched her eyes shut in an attempt to collect her memories, but all she got was flashing scenes and blurred lights spinning through her head. Images seared in her mind and fluttered across her consciousness like a dream all at once; images she had no remembrance of. They chased each other in her head like a circle, but she couldn't solidly catch one, only glimpses: A giant toad smoking a pipe. A redheaded boy with dark circles around his eyes, wearing a Kage hat. A giant, red moon hanging in the sky. A young man, resting his chin on her shoulder, bloodied spikes sticking out from his back. An orange, spiraling face.

There were a couple she recognized, as well, she realized. Like Iruka yelling at her in class, throwing a piece of chalk at her face, or the Hokage monument, graphitized with neon paints. She could even pull back an image of that lazy bum Shikamaru, crouched with his hands in a funny position, his eyes opening to reveal a dead serious gaze. Pink hair billowed in her sights as Sakura, hair cut short, smiled endearingly at her, Sasuke and Kakashi standing in the background at ease. They looked different, somehow though. Older maybe? And since when did Sakura look at her like _that_?

Naruto could feel the depiction slithering away, grains of sand slipping through her fingers. The redheaded girl tried to grasp on to it, anchor it to her, but the second her mind focused in on the image, it snapped and crumbled leaving bright red and agony.

"Gah!" she screeched, her search for her missing teammate halting as she fell to her knees, clutching her head in excruciating pain. Her neck muscles were spasming uncontrollably and her mind turned to mush as it felt like kunai after kunai was stabbed into her brain. Naruto bit her lip to block her scream.

Just as quickly as it arrived, the red and pain evaporated, leaving a dull pounding hum of pain behind her eyes. Blackness returned to her eyelids. Another moan escaped her lips as she pried her eye lids apart.

It was still misty and gloomy and grey with no sign of anything she had witnessed within her own head. However, when she twisted her neck in an attempt to crack it and alleviate the pressure she knew was building there, Naruto noticed something in a pile of ice just out of clarity. It appeared to be a person, almost, laying still on the ground. It appeared to be Sasuke.

Scowling, Naruto dragged herself up and hobbled over. Damn Uchiha, thinking that he could take a nap now that he had awakened his… sharingan…

Naruto's stomach plummeted into her bowels and she was left with a distinctive queasy feeling.

"No," she whispered, striding cautiously to the limp figure, "That didn't happen, just like those other things." She gulped at the thick air greedily while her throat closed up in grief. Her pulse rate soared, and the bounding of her blood pressure trilled against her temples. "It's some stupid fucked up thing my mind made up," she assured herself, planting a foot next to her teammate's stomach.

Sasuke's eyes were closed, a serene look upon his face if not for the needles pricking him like a porcupine. Remnants of salty tears crusted at his eyes like blood crusted on her limbs and torso. He was just sleeping, Naruto guaranteed, like the arrogant bastard that he was.

Her fingers found their way to his carotid without her even knowing, trembling against his still warm skin. There was no pulse, no beat.

The girl hiccuped, the cries held back through bravado slowly breaking through. The masked shinobi had killed Sasuke by using her as bait. Their first C-rank mission, their first time being even close to friends… and he was gone.

But Haku wouldn't kill anyone, he never wanted that.

Stilling, Naruto retraced her thoughts. Haku was the boy from the forest. What did he have to do with any of this? Recognition glimmered behind the redhead's eyes.

Eyes narrowing, Naruto shoved her arms under his, dragging him through the destroyed mirrors; she couldn't just leave her teammate lying there, after all. But why would Haku be behind the mask, and how did she know? How did she know that he didn't kill Sasuke?

Grunting, the genin pulled her teammate from the debris and eyed him critically, mind racing. Sasuke had no pulse; he had to be dead, she mused sadly, more tears threatening her eyes. Her mind had to be screwing with her if it thought she would believe that Haku, _if _he was the masked nin, could place Sasuke in a false state of death.

The glint of a needle attracted her attention. Senbon, Naruto realized with a stuttering hope. The ninja had used senbon before to make it seem as if Zabuza had died, why not do the same with Sasuke?

Naruto's mind pulsated angrily again, pulling the last dregs of her previous headache up to the surface.

Maybe it was her belief in her brief friend or maybe it was foolish hope, but more likely it was just that Naruto was struggling to run away from reality, but she didn't question her new revelation. If Naruto was anything, she was stubborn to a fault.

And with confidence that was grossly ill befitting of her current predicament, the redheaded genin of Konohagakue who was known as the most unpredictable knuckle-headed ninja walked in the direction her gut lead her. Coincidentally, it lead her directly to who she wanted to see.

His mask was different, no longer perfectly smooth porcelain. Instead, a circular indent was inscribed into the surface looking almost like a spiral. Naruto couldn't recall how such a blemish came to be.

The two stood in silence: one in consternation and the other in surprise. Naruto, for once in her thirteen years of life, felt no need to open her mouth and talk, instead contented to simply scrutinize the boy in front of her. Because now she realized he was just that: a boy. Most likely a few years older than her, possibly sixteen, despite his generally frail and diminutive figure, and while his hair was up in a clothed bun with only a few tresses loose—a particularly feminine hairstyle—one could tell he was male from the protrusion of his Adam's apple, no matter how small it was. Still, Naruto could easily imagine him being mistaken for a girl, like she had done not five days ago.

"Why haven't you killed me, yet?" came the ever monotonous voice from behind the mask. It wasn't said out of fear or even curiosity, rather simple anguish. Naruto tilted her head in puzzlement at the question. The masked shinobi clenched his hands until they were pale white. When he spoke again, his voice had risen, and anger and hysteria leaked into his words. "You are stronger than I am and have beaten me. I am no longer a useful tool for Zabuza-sama."

He paused, almost as if steadying his breath, and Naruto couldn't help but abhor that mask that hid his face. It made him seem inhuman.

"Why should I kill you?" Naruto countered, averting her eyes to the sound of fighting away on other parts of the bridge.

"I killed your friend." His voice was strong and confident when he delivered those words, so Naruto couldn't help but wonder why she couldn't believe them in her heart. She simply knew he was lying. Her head, despite how it had pounded and protested against her earlier, was telling her that Haku was lying.

"No, you didn't kill him, Haku, you couldn't," she mumbled gently. The ninja in front of her stiffened in shock, never moving even when Naruto's fingers hooked underneath his mask and removed it. The object dropped to the ground and shattered on impact, just as the ice mirrors had.

Haku's delicate features were twisted with amazement when revealed, tear tracks staining his cheeks in a steady flow of liquid. His slate eyes wavered, but held firm onto Naruto's own. They were resolute in their decision, peaceful in his conclusion.

"But I will," he whispered hoarsely, "I will kill him if it means aiding Zabuza-sama in any way. Even if it means killing my heart with a blade and becoming a true shinobi." There was no hesitance in his statement.

Naruto's ire built inside of her, growing larger and larger before she opened her mouth and yelled, "Why help him, Haku? He's a bad guy, an evil man! You don't have to kill if you don't want to!" Naruto averted her eyes and clenched her hands to hide their tremors. "Don't become a monster for his sake," she added after a moment of quiet.

The soft chuckle that floated from Haku's mouth made Naruto bristle in absolute fury. He seemed so okay with how he was being treated. It was so... wrong.

"Do you know what it is like, Naruto-chan?" he began gently, crouching down to pick up the largest piece of his broken mask. Inspecting it with tenderness, Haku's calloused fingers stroked the surface, tracing the red wave. Naruto watched with rapt attention, glaring down at her would-be-friend. "The most painful thing," the boy added, taking a gentle look up to meet her gaze, "is to realize that, in this world, my existence wasn't needed or even wanted. Not having a dream, not needed by anyone… the pain of merely being alive."

Naruto had nothing to say to that, her own body frozen to the spot at Haku rose to his full height, over a foot taller than she was. He smiled at her calmly, mask still in hand. "Zabuza-sama gave me the answer to my existence, Naruto-chan. He saved me from that; he wanted my accursed blood that had left me alone." His voice became hard, but content, happy almost. His smile even widened as he spoke, "If that means I am his tool and that I must kill, then so I must. I want to protect the person important to me. I want to fight for that person. I want to make that person's dream come true… That is my dream."

It was so messed up, Naruto realized, clenching her teeth together is anger, that Haku felt this way. That he felt indebted to that man so much to kill his own beliefs. But it was even more messed up that she could understand where the boy was coming from. She wondered, had the Hokage not come around and inspired her to become Hokage, would she have fallen to this same darkness? What if she didn't have Iruka-sensei… or Kakashi-sensei or Sakura or Sasuke?

"But," Haku's voice gave her pause. Naruto looked up, empathy and pain dancing across her features. This time when meeting Haku's eyes, the boy seemed possessed by sadness and regret. His next words sent shivers of distaste up her spine, "I have failed him and am worthless now even as a tool. Because of this, Naruto-chan, please kill me."

Cold fear gripped Naruto's heart and body, a sense of unknown familiarity at those words, like she had heard them before. "What?" Naruto questioned, voice barely above a whisper. Even the clanging of weapons in the distance could be heard easier than her words.

"Kill me. A broken tool is useless, and I do not wish to go through the pain of being useless once again."

"I can't!" Naruto screamed, wincing at the volume of her voice. She couldn't kill Haku, and she wouldn't! He wasn't fighting anymore and he… he was her friend!

"Please, Naruto-chan," Haku pleaded, and the sorrow pierced he skin. Here she was, a kunoichi, a trained killer and assassin, and her enemy was offering his life to her willingly. Yet she couldn't do it, even if he asked. There was an ache in her chest at the thought of striking Haku down, even with his wishes. Haku was worth more than just being a weapon, and something told her that, despite what Haku believed, Zabuza might even know this himself. It was just a gut instinct, but shinobi learned to rely on such things.

"Haku," Naruto began again, but was cut off when the boy violently whipped his head in the direction of her sensei's fight. Naruto paused, perplexed for a moment, before she recognized something. There was no more sounds of kunai clashing to kunai or swords singing through the air. Naruto chanced a look that way as well, but knew she wouldn't see anything but endless mist. It was silent.

Then suddenly, the sound of chirping pierced the quiet and grew louder and louder until it was a roar, a symphony of birds all singing their own high-pitched lament to the world. The sound was curiously familiar. Brows furrowed in thought, Naruto turned back to Haku in order to ask if he knew what it was. Her words died in her throat when she took in his expression.

Pure fear and even purer determination. Naruto could have sworn she had seen that look upon his face before, as if a cloudy memory.

"Sorry, Naruto-chan, but I have one last way I can be of use," Haku muttered, bringing a his fingers up into a hand sign Naruto couldn't recognize. But she was sure of it now. She knew this scene, somehow, from somewhere. She knew what was to happen next.

"No! Haku!" she yelled, reaching out for his sleeve. Her fingertips brushed the haori's fraying fabric in an attempt to clamp down and stop the boy, but he was already gone, leaving behind only smoke.

Staring at the empty space, Naruto blanks out as her mind took over on autopilot. She found her fingers are moving deftly into a hand sign, one she didn't realize she even knew. It was like an out-of-body experience, watching almost numbly as her finger moved on their own with their own mind. Her head thrummed with pain as the chakra built, and then, with sudden clarity, Naruto knew exactly what was to happen and what she had to do. Without hesitation, Naruto released her built up chakra and pushed it through her coils.

Then she, too, disappeared in a puff of smoke.

**So there it is. Hope ya'll liked it and please drop a review! It WILL make me update faster (proven fact!) so if you're interested, even a "I liked it!" or "It was stupid. Wtf" works, yeah? Heck, if you just write "Platypus" I'd be happy... well, maybe not that... but honestly, I LOVE reviews, especially long ones that tell me what you think or like or didn't like! PLEASE. lol**

**Have a nice day all of you, and thanks for reading :)**

**Koby Out!**


	2. Shinobi Rule 25

**A/N: Wow, ok, I am so flattered that despite the slower beginning chapter, I've gotten 14 reviews, 21 favorites, 59 followers and placed into a community… just… wow :) Thank you guys all so much! I promised myself if I somehow got 10 reviews on the first chapter, this second one would be in the works ASAP! And now that I hit it last night and I just finished my physiology and lab final, here I am working on it ;)**

**Thank you to the ones who gave me ideas for this mishmash of a story as well! Continue to do so if you wish, and please, give me thoughts! I'm trying to fix my mistakes of the last chapter, such as pacing, but I'm afraid that it is still a little slow…. I think maybe that's because it is still close to canon and the Wave mission was truly a huge turning point in Naruto's career and mindset so I can't leave things out! :) Still… This is where we begin to… diverge from canon, so I hope it's good enough for you guys! :D Thanks for making it to the second chapter!**

**Also, warning: there is one point where things will get confusing and you will know it when you see it… just let it go and accept it and things will be explained xD**

***Don't Own Naruto***

_Shinobi Rule #25:_

_No matter the situation, a shinobi must keep emotions on the inside; you must make the mission your top priority and you must possess a heart that never shows tears._

Kakashi charged forward, fully intent on impaling Momochi Zabuza with his chidori. He might no longer feel the fox's chakra saturating the air, but the damned demon wasn't known as the strongest and slyest of bijuu for nothing. Kakashi knew he had to finish this fast and check up on his students.

Closing in on his enemy, Kakashi made the minute adjustments to his incoming angle to avoid accidently skewering his own ninken currently holding Zabuza in place. He was to aim just under the ribcage, angling the strike upwards to bypass the ribs and pierce the heart for an assured death. He expected it to be quick, if not a little messy, which was fine with him as long as his genin couldn't see the bloodbath.

When Zabuza's minion to slide into place right in front of the missing nin, mask missing and beaten and bruised, Kakashi could add even this into his expectations, though what that meant for Sasuke and Naruto wasn't something he could truly focus on at the moment, clamping down on his emotions to focus on his killing blow.

Kakashi narrowed his eyes at the obviously young boy.

The brunette's face was resolute and determined, hands held at the ready most likely with the intention of taking the killing blow before holding Kakashi in place for Zabuza to strike them both down. Kakashi inwardly snorted. The move was suicidal, brave, and absolutely worthless. No matter what the boy tried, Kakashi would still execute Zabuza one way or another and come out as victor. All he had to do was escape before the man's huge ass sword reached his head. Easy enough, with the ninken slowing him down.

Yet, what Kakashi could never have expected and what he could never even think to anticipate was his own genin, roughed up and obviously exhausted, flashing before his attack in a shunshin, a jutsu she shouldn't have even known.

But he was too close, too involved to stop.

"Naruto!" he bellowed in panic as his arm swung upwards and into her shoulder, lightning piercing clean through the tissue and bone with a sickening slice. As his hand stopped, just popping out of Naruto's back, the momentum's wind caught up to the situation was a lag, puffing back the girl's red hair from her face to reveal thickened and wild whisker marks rapidly deteriorating into the usual thin three. Her eyes were closed in agony, and she grunted in response to her sensei's voice.

The man's eyes widened in panic as his sharingan took it all in, memorizing every grimace in agony and every moan in pain. The distressed scrunch of Naruto's face—so similar to his own sensei's face or was it actually his sensei's face there in pain?—would forever haunt his mind and dreams. One hand was still held in the half ram seal of the shunshin while the other lay lightly on his arm as the lightning chakra died out. Small red roses of blood growing and growing until it dripped rivers down her clothes. She would be the second teammate he had killed with this technique, his arm buried deep into their flesh.

His breathing picked up as he began to lightly hyperventilate, the girl unmoving. "N-Naruto…?" he questioned with a croaking voice. This was his sensei's _child_ impaled on his arm, his genin, his teammate's blood was pouring down from a wound he inflicted upon her. Why had she jumped in front of him and to her death for the enemy?

Kakashi sighed a morbid breath of relief as Naruto groaned and the hand on his arm tightened. She was alive right now, but he definitely couldn't assure her survival from the wound, no matter the healing the fox gave her. Kakashi's eyes roved her body top to bottom, noting no other blemishes or wounds on her skin, though several perforating holes and slash marks tore up her clothes. Naruto wasn't hurt otherwise… The jounin wasn't sure whether he should remove himself from her or not; how much would she bleed?

He hesitated, arm convulsing with the slight aftershock of the chidori, and again the redhead moaned in pain. Kakashi's breath hitched and his eyes widened in panic.

With her eyes still scrunched shut, Naruto forced words from her mouth. They weren't addressed to him, though, but rather the pair she had shielded from her own team's attack: "Gato is going to betray you, ya know?" she panted. With stiff movements, Naruto twisted her head backwards to face Zabuza and Haku. She added, "He's gonna try to kill you so he doesn't have to pay."

Naruto didn't even want to touch upon how she knew, just _knew_, that Gato would be arriving any minute with his damned worthless minions, asserting a sadly misplaced sense of superiority.

Naruto swallowed heavily, choking down saliva to lubricate her exceedingly dry throat and distract her from the excruciating agony in her shoulder. She was so stupid, jumping in front of Kakashi-sensei's attack—being impaled just wasn't what it cracked up to be, and who knows? Maybe she'd end up on that Memorial Stone yet—but she knew what was going to happen and Kami smite her if she was going to leave it be. That, and there was no one she was going down before she got to see Gato's head get bashed in.

Naruto grit her teeth against crying out as her shoulder's nerve endings protested her current predicament in pain. It was as if she felt her cells attempting to sew back together, but being stopped by her sensei's arm.

Zabuza grunted, scowl apparent from the twisting of the bandages around his mouth. "Even if that's true," the missing nin stated in his rasping voice, "I can kill your team, the bridge builder, and all of his weaklings and rid myself of this entire headache. See who he pays then." The man laughed, loud and taunting, before relaxing against the sharp teeth of the dogs. The mutts had begun to loosen their grips in surprise, just as Kakashi's mind had already departed from their fight as well.

His eyes were far away, lost in a cloudiness that spelled death for any ninja who would supposed to be fighting. But where was the fun in that?

Maliciously, Zabuza spoke up, "This the first, Kakashi? The first time you lost a subordinate?" The copy-nin's eyes flashed with steel, removing them from the redhead panting in distracting pain to the man in front of him. Snorting, Zabuza continued, "Not that she was all that much of a ninja really if this has anything to say about it."

Leveling a dark glare at the man who dwarfed her, standing behind her shocked friend, Naruto growled, "Don't talk to him like that." Her words were punctuated with a quick flash of malevolence as her eyes bled red for the third time that day. Naruto tightened her grip on Kakashi's arm, holding him still when she noticed that he finally composed himself and choked down his emotions like the elite he was.

Plans were probably zipping through his mind right now; plans to get her and their team out of here with little more damage, to extricate their client before things tail-spun even worse, to dispose of their enemies as quickly and efficiently as possible, now that he was facing both at once. However, Naruto wouldn't let anyone harm her precious people, even if it was her sensei and even if said people were being massive jerks at the moment and trying to kill her. Why Zabuza was precious to her of all people, Kami knows, but still, the emotion remained and no one was dying on her watch. That's just not how Uzumaki Naruto worked.

In his defense, Zabuza only stiffened for half a second before recovering to guffaw. "You have quite the attitude, gaki," he said with no small amount of mirth. Naruto could have sworn she detected something in his eyes then, at her words, though. Something he tried to hide from her perceptive gaze. "Such a shame that you have to die here…"

A hidden undertone in his words sent her already unsteady mind reeling again and her head swam. Choking on a breath, she leaned heavily into Kakashi's arm, much to his alarm. Her vision blurred and morphed and twisted and for a split second, just one fleeting moment, she thought she saw the hulking man crying. But then she blinked the dizziness away and it was gone.

Naruto took a deep breath to ground herself as her body threatened to sway and shut down. Not yet.

"Now, move Haku. Let me end this here."

Both she and Kakashi stiffened at that proclamation.

Haku, as well, tensed at his master's words with nothing less than trepidation that was leaning more towards doom. Swiveling brown, pleading eyes to the man, he implored, "But Zabuza-sama, she warned us-"

"Haku, she is an enemy nin. If you don't move, I'll cut right through you, too."

Naruto understood the words. No one but her had that special kind of crazy to aid an enemy trying to kill her sensei, but to cut _through_ his student? His friend? Naruto's ire grew and protested against those odd little inklings pricking at her skull, unable to be ignored, telling her they were both precious, they both deserved to live.

"If that is what you wish, Zabuza-sama, then please cut me down. I am already a broken tool, worthless to you…"

Snarling, Naruto took advantage of the standoff to pull herself off Kakashi's arm, blood now literally pouring from her chest as she suddenly felt queasy at the sight. But she swallowed down the bile and the fear and the call of unconsciousness to ignore the surprised look on Kakashi's face and to turn towards the Mist duo. With the last of her energy, Naruto punched Haku. Hard.

"Naruto!" Said girl vaguely discerned that voice as Kakashi's, no longer worried or panicked or lost. No, now his voice was commanding and back in control. Naruto knew she had little time.

Now on the ground, skull having just made an unforgettable first meeting with the ground, Haku glanced up in obvious surprise at the girl before him. Her red hair had begun to stick up in random directions, stiffening with dried sweat and blood, and her entire torso was covered with the stuff. In fact, her entire being could be considered red, from her hair to her eyes, to the red smears across her face and body, to the slightly bubbling of red-orange chakra at her shoulder. But Naruto ignored all of this.

"That's for asking me to kill you, teme, and for trying to make me think you killed Sasuke," she snarled vehemently.

"As for you," she began as she turned on Zabuza, but her lack of blood wasn't helping her in anyway. Instead of a smooth pivot, Naruto found herself stumbling towards the man who was still silently fighting Kakashi's pack of dogs with renewed vigor to gain movement. And then she was falling, head sailing in a smooth arc to collide with Zabuza's stomach in what was no doubt going to be a painful crash. Her eyes crunched shut as she relaxed her body for the collision that would undoubtedly finally dislodge her consciousness from the waking world she desperately clung to.

That is, before she felt warm arms slip around her waist, tender but strong.

She smelt a familiar musky scent mixed with blood and steel. Kakashi. Naruto relaxed… until she started to be pulled away.

"No! Kakashi, wait!" she cried, struggling against her sensei's grip and against the blackness swallowing her mind with pain. Naruto screamed at one particularly harsh jerk, and Kakashi almost dropped her in surprise, but he was no longer delayed or hesitant. He was a shinobi, and Kakashi knew he needed to act as such. His grip tightened his hold.

Naruto clenched her mouth shut before another scream ripped out of her as she watched with bated breath as the ninken tightened their hold on the swordsman, looking fiercer than they had ever before, despite the fact that Zabuza was no longer fighting the snare. Naruto glared at the man as he turned his look down towards a still stunned Haku. He said something she couldn't hear past the ringing in her ears and the commands Kakashi was yelling to Sakura, but through her blurry vision Naruto could still see Haku's head dip down towards the ground.

She didn't have time! Her damned head was starting to pull her under the soft warmth of catalepsy while her mind wrought panicked chaos, urging her to do something for these shinobi she barely knew, yet felt that she was connected to.

Naruto could feel the tear of gingerly healing flesh as she pushed against Kakashi's stomach with her bad arm before it was quickly locked against her side with his grip. So she couldn't escape, but she wasn't known as loud and annoying by her peers—and basically everyone else—for nothing.

"Damnit Zabuza! He'll do anything for you, even kill himself without a second thought! Haku loves you, you bastard, and how do you repay him?" Naruto screeched crossly, her voice cracking as she wriggled in rebellion. Naruto panted as darkness shimmied into her peripherals. "He's not a tool for you to use and throw away, he's a person, 'ttebayo!"

However, Naruto never got to see the nuke-nin's reaction. Instead, Kakashi had decided that enough was enough. "Naruto, stop! You're going to die if you keep this up," he said in a smoothly dangerous tone; it was a tone that told her to be quiet unless she wanted him to make her be quiet. Naruto's jaw locked against the heaviness pulling at her eyelids and the lead that weighed down her body.

Her mind attempted to think clearly, to pull itself out of the image of a dead Zabuza reaching towards and equally dead Haku, smile on his face. The image seemed real, all too real, in her fuzzy mind, and she hated it. Naruto knew that she didn't want that. Naruto fought for a moment, struggling against the image in her head and against the lull of sleep, but then her eyelids pulled together like magnets and the oblivion behind them assuaged her rapidly growing headache.

Why had she been fighting back the darkness again? Just floating in it, Naruto realized it was so nice, and warm, and calming…

"Naruto!" came a familiar high-pitched screech, echoing and bouncing in her head. She scrunched her face up, snuggling into the warmth in an attempt to cover her ears. It was just too _loud_.

"Naruto!" This time the call was deeper, more masculine, followed by a sharp sting, and she whimpered at the feeling. "Naruto, just open your eyes, okay?" It was Kakashi-sensei, she could tell, but he was being annoying right now. Why couldn't he just shut up and let her sleep? She saved Haku-chan and Zabuza, Gato was going to be dead, and they all knew Sasuke was alive and well. Now they could go and partake in the chuunin exams without worrying about anything.

A light growled rumbled from her lips as she felt her body be shifted agonizingly before the pain ebbed away.

"Naruto!" This time a sharper sting and Naruto's eyes flung open, flinching at the light. Her groggy gaze met the sage green of Konoha's shinobi vest, and Naruto grouchily wondered why they had to wake him up. If they had the time to play around and slap his face, then obviously no one was chasing them. And they should all know that Kurama would heal whatever pain was in his shoulder.

Mumbling grievances, Naruto's eyes fluttered shut with slight annoyance at his old sensei. Damned Hatake, thinking he couldn't take care of himself… he was nineteen, damnit!

"Sensei, will she be okay?"

Was that Sakura, Naruto wondered. Oh, she'd be pissed that he went and got himself hurt again, definitely. But why was her voice so loud and high-pitched and prepubescent? It was almost as if…

Naruto's eyes snapped open to be met with disorientation and dizziness. Looking to one side, there was an ocean, shining dully as mist crept along the surface. Just through said mist, Naruto could barely make out a partially finished bridge, spanning from one outlet of land off into a distance that the Uzumaki couldn't make out.

Ignoring the pounding of blood in his ears, Naruto flung his head the other way to realize he was being cradled in his sensei's arms, and past that he could see three more Kakashi's as well, each carrying their own charge. On first of the Kakashi's back was an old man with a goatee, straw hat flapping mercilessly in the wind. Naruto belatedly realized that it was, in fact, Tazuna the bridge-builder from his first ever C-rank mission. Which meant…

Craning his head out further, on another clone's back was Sakura, pink hair still long and tussling with the wind as they ran. Her eyes slid over to meet his and lit up with relief.

"Kakashi-sensei! I think she woke up!"

However, as much as he enjoyed seeing Sakura's face full of innocence and life, it was the body next to her, on the final Kakashi, that truly peaked Naruto's interest. A tear slid from his eyes as Naruto noticed Sasuke's pale face leaning peacefully against their sensei's broad back. He had done it, he truly made it back in-

"Naruto!"

Swiveling his head once more to face Kakashi, Naruto attempted to scratch the back of his neck before deciding it was a bad idea considering the pain the jolted through his arm at every jump. Instead, he gave his usual foxy grin, truer than it had been in years, eyes closed and everything. He didn't care at the moment if this wasn't how his escort mission had gone, that the current moment was slightly different than what he had gone through the first time around. Oh _Kami above_, the "first time around;" here, he had his second chance.

The relief and pure euphoria at being able to be back and change all that went wrong was enough to mitigate any worries at the moment.

"Ah, Kaka-sensei, sorry for-"

Naruto's eyes widened. Was that… his voice? It was oddly different. He couldn't place a finger on it, but…

The Uzumaki was knocked from his thoughts when his focus landed on his sensei's face, sharingan fully presented with three tomoe swirling. But why did he look so confused? Was something wrong? Had he already made a mistake-?

"Gah!" Naruto screamed, oddly high-pitched and piercing.

A monumental headache crashed into him like a tidal wave, pushing Naruto's consciousness down deeper into black nothingness. Pounding, throbbing, slamming agony fought in the genin's head in a swirling bedlam, until finally Naruto's eyes opened again gingerly. The mist still coated the ground, slinking between their limbs like a purring feline as wind buffeted their faces. Naruto's arm twitched in pain and a hiss blew past clenched teeth.

"Naruto, are you alright?" Kakashi asked, concern almost drowning his voice.

Kakashi's muscles unclenched when he noticed his student's eyes fought to stay open as she nodded minutely. He sighed in relief at the sight. Muddled fatigue shone in her purple irises as her eyelids fluttered, and Kakashi observed how they flashed in the day's dulled light. They always shone a brilliant deep violet with flashes of vibrancy, but never blue. Never once his sensei's clear sapphire blue. Still, he could have sworn those orbs were a bright and crystal for a moment back there, just like Minato-sensei's.

The scrutiny didn't last long when the girl muttered, almost under her breath so it was lost in the wind, "Kakashi-sensei." The copy nin strained his ears to hear her next words, flickering his gaze to her amethyst eyes. They were trying to focus, battle off the throes of chakra exhaustion and blood loss, though she was obviously losing. When her eyes passed right by his face and over his shoulder to nothing, Kakashi's teeth clenched. She needed medical attention and she needed to lay down so he could give it to her. Just a little bit longer and they'd be at their client's house. He picked up his speed.

However, Kakashi never realized that Naruto was focusing on something definite, just something no one else could see. "Kakashi-sensei," she began again as he grunted in acknowledgement. Attempting to focus in on the blurry illusion behind her sensei, Naruto squinted her eyes tiredly. It was of a man, holding an orange mask, with one red eye blazing. She flicked her gaze between his red eye and Kakashi's red eye in drained curiosity before asking in a small, almost inaudible voice, "Who is Obito?"

Naruto had passed out as soon as the words left her mouth, therefore she missed the tense stiffening of Kakashi's shoulders as they continued to flee to safety.

_S_H_I_N_O_B_I_R_U_L_E_2_5_

"Kami it hurts," Naruto moaned feverishly, grabbing at her shoulder. Rubbing at the smooth flesh, she glanced down to realize that the wound had already healed. Smiling blithely, Naruto called out, "Hey Kakashi-sensei, look! I'm fine…" The Uzumaki's voice trailed off when she realized that she wasn't near her team, or a bed, or even what could have been Wave.

In fact, if Naruto didn't know any better, she would say that she was on a boat if the rocking and soft lapping of water were any indication. Not to mention the wooden paneling underneath her or the long paddle resting across her torso. Eyes widening, Naruto hurled her sore chest over the side of the boat in an attempt to empty the content of her stomach.

After a few moments of retching, Naruto wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and winced. Her body felt weak and was protesting against her in every way possible. With a deep breath to center herself in the midst of gentle swaying and nausea, the redhead opened her eyes to inspect a sight she had never seen before.

"What the...?"

All around her were ruins of what she could only assume was once a magnificent city. Gray slabs of deteriorated stone and rubble littered each side of a small canal she was situated in, all of which glowing with bright blue lines which resembled looping kanji before dipping into the water itself. Eyes widening in wonder and confusion, Naruto hesitated in poking the water, also throbbing with bright blue energy, before giving into her curiosity.

No ripples were present at the contact, but a jolt of vibrant vitality raced up her back, eliciting a gasp. Nausea, soreness, and pain suddenly flowed out of her. However, the feeling was gone almost as soon as it appeared, and the water remained undisturbed save for the tender lapping against the boat.

"What in Kami's name…?" Where the hell was she? Was this an elaborate ruse by enemies, or did her team take a little vacation to the ruined city of Nowhere? Was this place even in Wave Country? Naruto scrunched her face up in consternation before giving up. Thought wasn't her best skill set, and her team was more likely to find her and tell her what was up before she figured anything out anyway.

In the meantime, what could some harmless adventuring do? With a mischievous grin, the Uzumaki stepped up to a flattened stage on the boat just behind her and leaped.

Even with the energy from her jump, the boat barely splashed or upset the water.

Stretching lightly, Naruto swept her eyes across her surroundings in a more thorough attempt to size up her setting.

Really there wasn't much the redhead could say about the place, though that wasn't because it was boring or common. It was just that the area was so massive, with all the tattered buildings spanning out wide before releasing in what appeared to be grassy knolls—if what Naruto spied past the rubble was correct—that it was too much to completely take in. Several winding, dirt path lead away from the throbbing blue canal and the boat and into the decrepit city with fallen towers and high rise buildings.

"Where am I?" Naruto muttered under her breath, gaze darting back and forth among the rubble. Her hands rested happily behind her neck as she hummed a nonsensical tune. She really was wondering where in the Elemental Nations did her team dropped her. Sure, she sucked at geometry or whatever the subject was called, but no one was walking through the city, and neither were there any bodies. And that definitely couldn't be normal.

Teasing her lip with her teeth, confusion raced across Naruto's face. Seriously, this looked nothing like Wave Country. Well, except for the fact that the city was near the water.

"Hello?" the girl yelled, cupping at her lips at an attempt to facilitate the words' travels. However, the only answer was her own voice's echo, and eventually that too was swallowed up by the space. Brushing a wayward crimson spike of hair from her face and adjusting her hitai-ate upon her forehead, Naruto left the boat and water behind her to take a step farther into the remnants.

"Kakashi-sensei? Sakura-chan? Teme?" Each of her calls once again fell upon the hollow ears of the stone, devouring the disturbance with eerie efficiency. That was weird; Naruto was sure her team wouldn't just drop off a wounded teammate in a random country, no matter whether she protected the enemy from an attack. Unless… Naruto's eyes narrowed into suspicious slits, thoughts already cruising through her head with curses and swears.

"Oi! This isn't funny! Come out!" she hissed petulantly, punting a particularly large rock off into the distance where it disappeared among other, equally large rocks. Those bastards were totally pulling a prank on her in return for her interference! It wasn't her fault that she suddenly knew she had to save Haku and Zabuza, even if the latter was being a homicidal asshole. A flicker of silver crossed her peripherals.

"Kakashi!" Naruto growled, chasing after the flash. Pouting, or perhaps grimacing, Naruto skidded to a stop in order to face where she lost sight of her sensei. The fleeting image had disappeared behind structure that looked like it could have once been a restaurant, faded kanji upon a sign marked with a spiral, crumbling walls afflicted with the same blue glowing marks. Now it was more or less a carcass.

Looking through the destroyed windows, around the corners, and behind boulders, Naruto frowned. Still no one. Only ruined buildings and silence and eerie shadows…

The place was, simply put, a ghost town.

Naruto blanched as the realization hit her, and she flinched as if she was physically struck.

"Ugh," Naruto murmured, eye twitching in irritation. "Why does the place have to be so damn _creepy_?" Growling obscenities to herself while waving her arms around in what could only be an imitation of her punching an imaginary Kakashi and Sasuke—"If this is a joke, it's not funny at all, damn bastards! I am injured you assholes!"—Naruto felt it. And whipping curious eyes to her left, she saw it.

At the end of her sight, Naruto swore she could spot a towering gate, standing strong and silent, glowing with azure carvings. While scuffed and a little worse for wear, the slate blue, sage, and red painted gate was still standing among the skeletons of its neighbors, and she swore the spiraling curls of the writings called to her, hypnotically pulsing along with her heartbeat. Everything else blurred and it wasn't long until her inquisitive feet found their way to it, all else lost from her focus.

Naruto's head craned upwards to fully take in the structure, standing a good thirty or forty feet tall. Behind it lay a spanning river that split the city in half, a whole new set of ruins directly across the way with its own gate. However, Naruto's attention wasn't entranced by the addition of rubble, but instead the giant pillar of blue crystal in the middle of the pass, the only thing not emitting a vibrant blue hue.

Leaning a palm on the firm wood of the gate next to her, Naruto breathed out, "Woah…" However, her words were choked of life in her throat when the two gates lit up in a fiery red which dispersed across the entire surface of the river, the once smooth and clear blue dying a deep vermilion, viscosity thickening to imitate what could only be called blood.

Swearing, Naruto ran to the river's red bedside. Kicking a small stone, Naruto watched in fascination as the rock skidded across the surface before sinking and disappearing from her sight. Tilting her head in confusion, Naruto said, "Now this is even creepier."

She really didn't know whether she should feel disturbed by the idea of an entire river transmuting to blood or just captivated. Reaching a hand up to her shoulder, Naruto scratched at a phantom itch as the smell of blood traveled to her nose.

Definitely disgusted, she decided, eyeing the stuff warily. She huffed, crossing her arms as her annoyance grew to even higher levels. "Funny prank guys," she called out, "Ha ha. Now where are you?"

But still, no sound. Silence echoed hollowly across the river's expanse before a soft whooshing brushed behind her, skin chilling for a moment before the tell-tale sound of crunching of dirt came to her ears.

Oh, so now the jerks show up. Just in time to see her disgusted face at their horrible idea of a prank. Naruto growled while whipping around towards the source, though that growl hastily evolved into a scream, the sound slicing the air.

There, charging at her, wasn't any of her teammates but instead a ghastly pale man holding a three bladed scythe dyed red. As she fell backward in an attempt to dodge, her head slammed against the river behind her. Not having time to wonder about how the river had suddenly turned to a solid surface, Naruto's mind was overcome with the swaying haze of stars before her face blanched when the washed out ghost of a man's cloak fluttered above her head. She could barely catch a glimpse of a stylized red cloud flickering on the cloth as well. Light shined through his body and rested upon the crimson waters.

"Ghost!" Naruto screeched, scrambling back and away. She watched on in horror as the man spun towards her with a sickening grin, wielding a red triple bladed scythe, before proceeding to lick the blade. Naruto's face turned green with discomfort as the man laughed with muted manic glee.

This man was absolutely crazy. How could she escape, she wondered as her eyes zipped every which way, zoning in on the frozen blood underneath her palms. Maybe if she broke through the surface she could hide herself underneath and swim away-

The shine of excitement that passed across his ghostly eyes pierced into her body, stopping all thought processes, and the killing intent rolling off of him paralyzed her. She gulped down greedy breaths of air, chest tightening in displeasure.

His eyes passed by her, as if she were the one not totally present, but the second his gaze fell to Naruto's prone form, she started shaking in fear. Choking down horrified gasps, Naruto felt like she was drowning in the thickened air. It wasn't anything like Zabuza's ki; his was almost child's play to the pure senseless blood lust circling her now.

His muted voice just floated across her ears, unable to catch a word that was said.

This man could kill her. This man was going to find her and murder her, she just knew, and he could do it just by batting an eye. Child's play, that's what she was, not even worth fighting. He would tear right through her. Just a simple swipe. Dead.

Scraping his blade against the ground, the cloaked man began to draw a circle around himself, Naruto's eyes following every aching movement and flick of the man's wrist. Her eyes were riveted to the movements, and she felt her body tense unconsciously when he sped up in the carvings.

What was he doing?

Suddenly a large ball of fire consumed the man's body out of nowhere, breaking her fear for a brief moment so that Naruto could tear her gaze to the direction of the fireball's origin. Naruto spotted a familiar looking Konoha nin with a goatee panting with a smirk.

He's not dead, she wanted to yell, to help, but her throat constricted like a snake against the words. He's going to kill you. He's not dead! She needed to help! Biting down hard, Naruto's teeth tore into her flesh and knocked her from the trance.

"Run!" she cried frantically, forcing the voice from her lungs, the timbre scratchy and trembling. It felt as if tiny blades had scratched up her throat and across her tongue, punishing her for her outburst. Yet, the man completely ignored her, determined and somber expression quickly shifting to one of surprise, definitely an expression mimicked on Naruto's own face.

Naruto watched, struggling to stand, as the jounin's arm began bubbling and peeling as if it were burnt instead of the killer next to her.

However, before Naruto could pull herself to her feet and rush to aid her comrade, the image swirled away like a mirage and the intense pressure with it. It felt as if the world collapsed, the ruined buildings around her instead a result of the crumbling pressure suddenly leaving and no longer supporting their architecture. Her lungs, sucking in on themselves with lack of oxygen and heart beating madly to resupply the body.

Naruto gasped for air, grabbing at her throat, and wasted no time. Staggering to stand, she backed away from the residue of the vision: faint carvings of a circle and ancient runes scorched on the bloody red surface.

Call it instinct or call it gut feeling, Naruto didn't care. She knew she needed to get away from that area. So she ran. She ran away from the bank where she saw the Konoha jounin and away from the crazy dude with the scythe.

She ran towards the giant pillar, intangible pulse pulling her closer.

Panting, it took her longer than she thought to circle the crystal and hide her body behind it. It had surprising girth, and despite her initial thoughts, the surface was actually quite smooth despite millions of tunneling cracks running like veins through it.

Who _was_ that?

Her pulse was still elevated and her mind in shambles, flinching at the fact that not only could she do nothing, but she didn't _try _to do anything, instead watching as her comrade got hurt and then… disappear…

Suddenly it occurred to her that this might be an illusion, a cruel genjutsu placed on her by an enemy nin or worse: Kakashi-sensei as punishment for jumping in the way of his attack. What was it again? Whispers of a word bounced across the walls and slithered into her ear, something she found completely disturbing considering the even that just transpired.

'Chidori… Chido…ri'

A tense shiver clawed up her spine. Oh god, how did Kakashi-sensei know she was afraid of ghosts? Was that his game? Setting her up in this fake desiccated city filled with ghosts teetering in and out of her conscious? Fighting and scaring the crap out of her? Maybe it was a memory of his, a past battle he fought before he got old and his hair turned grey. Genjutsu could do that right?

Agh! Why didn't she focus more in the academy? Pulling at her hair, Naruto slammed her skull against the pillar behind her only to moan at the contact. Kami, that was stupid, why was she so stupid sometimes? Like taking that damn chidori to the chest; nobody willingly takes a first of lightning to the chest for their enemies! And now that damned sensei of hers was punishing her for her stupidity.

But wait, Kakashi was actually really young, with silver as his natural hair color. At least, Naruto could have sworn that's what he told them, though he could be lying…

An image in her peripherals caused Naruto to jump up jerkily. This one was of a giant slug, siding across the ground before its eye stalks twitched. Out of nowhere, the monstrous bug or whatever slugs were beaded off into… were those smaller slugs?!

Again, Naruto felt the sudden urge to vomit and run away as the mini slugs crawled over and consumed what she could only assume what was a bloody body on the ground before the image disappeared.

Trembling, Naruto swiped her trembling hand across her superfluously sweaty face. Ghosts. Fighting, maniac, cannibalistic ghosts. Just perfect. Just peachy. Just great. In erratically fast puffs of air, Naruto quickly grew light-headed. Why did it have to be ghosts?

Suddenly, two ghost clones leaping towards each other in a cataclysmic embrace, dauntingly bright sunset an extreme contrast to the otherwise pale phantoms of the usual memories. The image was seared into Naruto's brain as her eyes watered until she could no longer take it.

How could that even be considered _funny_! When they got back to Konoha, oh Naruto swore she would prank the living daylights out of the man, sensei or not.

Had he not heard of cruel and unusual punishment?

"Kai!" she yelled, the bright blue light blinding her for a moment.

"Oh shit," she whispered in fear, ducking down towards the frozen red surface on instinct. Another sliver of silver peeped out into her vision, though this one was of Sasuke, though he was wearing a pale robe tied by purple rope. An oddly shaped sharingan was present in his sockets as he charged towards a blonde man wearing an orange jumpsuit. Both their fists were lit with overwhelming power. The absolute malevolence and desire to kill leaking from the illusion made her actually vomit, bile dripping down her chin.

It was worse than the first set of ghostly images.

She couldn't take it. She didn't want this.

Hastily, she twisted her body so that it face the pillar in an attempt to save her sanity, smashing her face into the substance. Rubbing her sore nose, Naruto opened her violet eyes to take a peek. Small flecks of blood—she assumed they were from her horribly aching nose—were absorbed into the crystal. With a harsh blue flash, similar to when she attempted to release whatever hell she was in.

A small, fist-sized paper seal grew from the pillar. It looked worn, but none of the characters were faded. Maybe this was the center or the illusion? Did genjutsu have those: power sources?

Well, there really was only one way to find out, and Naruto was always more of a doer than a thinker. So, without hesitation or second thought, Naruto went and ripped the seal off, tearing it apart for good measure. With a hopeful groan, Naruto threw the pieces to the ground, grinding it underneath the surface and watching it sink, little by little.

**A/N: So... I kinda sorta hate this chapter? It was supposed to be out a while ago after I got ten reviews (once again, you guys are THE best! :D ) but it was getting really hard to write after... well, after Naruto first got stabbed... sooo... I'm sorry if it is a little slow again, I really can't tell sometimes and I hope it's not too choppy and the like but most importantly I hope it pleases you all :) We get a couple important tidbits here and there that should have spiced things up (I hope lol) and now that finals are over with, I can write even more luckily.**

**Thoughts and critiques would be nice (especially if you guys thought this was slow again) or just a nice comment; proven fact: makes me write faster, even if it is just "accordion!" lol buttttt legit, no, its true hahaha but honestly, critiques would be interesting and nice to improve myself**

**Thank you to the anonymous reviewers guest and kitten who I wasn't able to send a message to in thanks, and thank you to all of those who followed/faved/reviewed/read this :) **

**ALSO! Anyone know where Naruto currently is (I suppose many of you will get this)? Anyone know why it is described the way it is, as in the setting (I'm curious to hear this)? Any questions, review or PM me and I will get back to you :)**

**Thank you for everything! Enjoy!**

**Koby Out!**


	3. Ebb And Flow

**So... hey guys... love you all... please don't kill me? I totally updated! Just... maybe... A little later than expected. :( I told of couple of you that I was going to be updating soon sometime mid January, and to those I promise this chapter to, I am sosososo sorry! I had this chapter, the next chapter, and most of the chapter after that written when my computer decided to screw itself in the butt and die, so I lost everything... and after that I felt dead inside for the longest time. I'm pretty sure the only reason I came back to write and update this is because all of your wonderful reviews :) But, moving past excuses and pleasantries..**

**Hey guys Koby is BACK with a new chapter! This one isn't as exciting as the last two, and you will probs hate me not even 1000 words in because I didn't pursue a path all of you wanted to know about... but have patience, it will come ;) hahaha More on this chapter; it has mostly dialogue and some weird remnants of Naruto's confusion in it (some of which I find hilarious!) so I'm sorry if it is slow, but I need to show some blowback on what Naruto has done :p no, this doesn't lead to Team Seven splitting up, btw, but just a series of events and the like and idk, tried setting up some stuff (this is mainly a transition chapter tbh).**

**Next chapter is leaving wave and some interesting little tidbits for our dear fem!naru, so look forward to it :) I have a mainly written plan to a little bit after the chuunin exams, so hopefully my muse will keep me going strong until then?**

**Once again, sorry for the wait, sorry that this chapter isn't as amazing and awesome as you all probably expected, but please have mercy on my soul!**

**QUICK UPDATE: I seriously love you all... 7 communities, 141 followers, 63 favorites, and 31 reviews... you are all so great.**

**Don't Own Naruto.**

_Ebb and Flow_

_Ebb and Flow, the alternate ebb and flood of the tide; often used figuratively._

_Characterized most commonly as the movement of the tide; the reflux or flowing back of the tide or the return of the tidal wave toward the sea before the tide pushes back. _

_It can also refer to the state or time of passing away; a falling from a better to a worse state; low state or condition; decline; decay._

As the scraps of paper sunk beneath the river, Naruto took a couple of deep breaths to calm her frayed nerves. There, it should all be over and done with, right? The genjutsu should totally be broken.

However, when the pillar remained standing in front of her, frosted and distorted vision of the ruined city visible through it, Naruto just smashed her face against the crystal for the second time within her delusion.

Naruto hadn't realized she was crying until she attempted to wipe the blood from her nose.

"Kami this is pathetic," Naruto muttered, rubbing at her face, "I'm the future hokage; I shouldn't be hiding!" With one last deep breath in and out, Naruto whipped around with her hands at the ready.

"Come at me, ghost bastards!"

She stood there for a good ten minutes, fists up and prepared, but no phantom images appeared before her eyes. Clenching and unclenching her fingers, Naruto released a long and suffering breath and swept her gaze across the entire area. No movement, no chill. No ghosts.

Instead, Naruto was met with the disruption of the water around her, viscous red pinching inwards directly next to her and unsettling the surface beneath her feet. The liquid sucked inwards before swirling and twisting down as if an eddy.

"Shit!"

Face slackening in surprise, Naruto stumbled and splashed in the water, one foot falling underneath the surface to the ankle. With a yelp, the girl yanked her foot upwards and toppled to the side as a result. Attempting to catch herself with one arm only to sink into the swirling river, Naruto flinched at the sight of her hand disappearing into the redness.

The current grew and grew until the twister of water pulled her supporting arms from underneath her, dragging Naruto's body down and into the crimson tide and consuming her body, scream and all.

_E_B_B_A_N_D_F_L_O_W_

Naruto came to in a fit of silent coughs, unable to breath. Her throat constricted around the air, pushing the gas out and repelling it from her lungs. The convulsing of her trachea refused to allow anything to pass: no oxygen, no breathe, no scream. She grabbed at her neck with both hands in a panic, or at least attempted to; tears were added to the choking when the sting of pain jolted down from her left shoulder and tingled into her fingers, halting its movement. Soon, the tingling became numbness and panic crawled up and through her mouth even as nothing else could get out.

She couldn't breathe. She _couldn't breathe!_

Naruto's heart trilled, roared actually, as it pounded against her ribs like a furious bull fighting against its cage, but to no avail.

Naruto's eyes bolted to and fro, wide and flashing in her anxiety. She tried to coach it in her head, her breathing that is. _One, two, _breathe. _ One, two, _breathe.

But only her eyes appeared to be heeding her will and through the blackened and sparkling spots in her vision, she could see. She could see the pale blue paint on the walls, peeling from humidity and desolation, and yellow water stains near the corners. She could see the heady afternoon glow shimmer in through a lone window, open to allow a light breeze tickle against her skin. Four walls, painted blue, modest window beside her and above a lone drawer, a barren door hanging upon its hinges. Naruto could taste the saltiness in the air, hear the muted conversations from below, and feel the coarse cloth under her fingertips.

These facts cut through her rising panic, tearing the pungent fear to shreds as they registered in Naruto's mind.

Safe. Normal.

_One, two_… and there it was, a deep though albeit shaky breath fluttering from her lungs accompanied by a rush of her staccato heartbeat. The air wheezed through her still closed throat, forcing its passage in and out as the throbbing and lightheadedness sluggishly subsided.

Naruto saw it. Four pale blue walls, dyed with the orange hue of a setting or rising sun—how long had she been out, lost in that genjutsu?—a barren door, a modest window, a lone drawer.

She roved her eyes across the place again and again, just to confirm within her mind that, this time, her awakening was real and in relative safety.

Finally, her lungs had loosened and the constriction upon her throat receded, oxygen being forced down and into her lungs to alleviate the tingling in her toes and the spots in her eyes. The lack of air was instead replaced with a sad wheezing that told of hours, maybe days, of sleep. The resounding pound of her heart throughout her body slowed minimally, just enough to gain her bearings.

Four pale blue walls, a wooden door barely on its hinges and crookedly set into its frame with the beguiling taunt of "maybe I'll just collapse right now," a relatively clean if not well-worn wooden floor, a yellowed watermark from a leak on the ceiling.

Naruto sucked in a deep, gracious breath.

There was no longer a decimated city encircling her, bones of buildings looming over her and casting shadows upon the rubble. Red, almost malevolent, water was nowhere to be seen, and the closest to an eerie cobalt glow was the dulled paint on the walls. Where did everything go? Had the bloody waters simply disappeared from underneath her own feet? Transmuted into wooden floors? Had the regal gates, staring the other down across the river, fled along with the skeletons of its brethren? Were those…

A shudder wracked Naruto's body and the girl couldn't find it in herself to bite back the moan of pain as the movement upset her injury. No, instead Naruto focused on closing her eyes to block out the remnants of silver phantoms haunting in her memories. She could still see those eyes, lackluster of color but painted full of blood and lust for violence, passing over her like she was nothing. Like she wasn't worth even killing; she was a fly to be swatted down and not even remembered.

An insignificant pest who might as well have already been dead to him.

The genin hadn't realized she had begun to grip at her wounded shoulder until some fresh blood began to drip down her fingers, her sharp nails pricking into her skin. Surely her team was going to have a hissy fit about that, Naruto mused absentmindedly, still focused elsewhere within her mind.

Those figures had been real. Or at least, they seemed real to her. Not even in the sense of her seeing them in a delusion real but _real _real. Naruto hadn't even thought that a genjutsu could do that, immerse herself so fully that it honestly felt almost _right_ to be seeing those people and feeling those emotions. Just natural, as if those _things_ were memories imbedded in her past.

An unfamiliar pull of absolute fury towards some images—which really didn't feel as unfamiliar as she would have liked—while an undeniable warmth that rippled through her body with affection at others.

That bleak, cold, empty sadness and betrayal that bit with a fire of determination and a strong-held belief of love and longing when faced with Sasuke and the blonde man.

Naruto growled unconsciously at the thought of some blonde bastard attacking _her_ teammate. And with a spiraling blue ball? How much more stupid could the boy be? Dodging a blue ball had to be child's play for Sasuke! Besides, no one aside herself was to beat that damned Uchiha, believe it!

"Urg…" Naruto moaned, leaning forward when the nausea of her flailing mind caught up to her, causing a crimson curtain of hair to cover her vision. There was a second of panic at the red flash of color, stealing away her sense again, but the sharpening of pain in her shoulder grounded her back.

Blue walls, modest window, poor door, lone desk.

She was safe. Normal.

The ghostly images and desiccated environment were gone from her now, washed away from her being. Whatever it was, genjutsu or not, when she pulled away the seal it had all disappeared. And from her knowledge of genjutsu—which was decidedly low, considering Naruto had the minimal grades to pass through the academy and honestly, genjutsu seemed like the cowards choice of jutsu, so why should she study it?—a technique anchored with a marking within the illusion could be well within the jutsu category's means.

Not that she still thought it had been a genjutsu. For some reason, her gut was telling her that wherever she was during that time, it was the furthest possible thing from an illusion.

It was simply important that those _beings_ were gone. And that she stop squeezing the life out of her healing arm.

Kami she felt weak. Being beaten by her own imagination! She could take a fist of lightning through her chest, but where was the all great Uzumaki awesomeness when stupid grey figures pranced around her mind.

Naruto quickly swallowed down another bout of panic and nausea at the memories.

With a calming breath, air eased and ebbed from her lungs in a steadier beat. The Uzumaki girl allowed the rhythm to anchor her as she settled with gripping the bed's sheets instead. Finally, Naruto's thundering heart began to slow to a more reasonable level and the pounding in her ears subsided to not be quite as deafening. She was safe, for now.

Naruto once again scrutinized the room.

She was, without a doubt, in one of the guest rooms in Tazuna's home. More specifically, she was in Kakashi's room if the particular zigzagging cracks emanating from the window sill were anything to go by. She had almost a week to study the intricacies of that particular design when her sensei had been out cold earlier that month after fighting Zabuza. It even still had the miniscule remnants of dust clinging to the nooks and crannies.

While Naruto remembered the room, she couldn't exactly place how she had gotten there, the last thing she remembered being screaming at Zabuza about Haku-

Naruto's amethyst eyes widened as she swung her body upwards, groaning with the swift orthostatic change. Were those two alright? Alive? Had Kakashi killed them or Gato's thugs executed them? Or did they massacre the hoard and run away with their winnings? Naruto's mind was particularly frantic in her thoughts, the only result coming to her mind being two still bodies in a steadily growing pool of blood. Their hands were linked as newly shed tears still dribbled from Zabuza's eye sockets, soft words stuck in his deadened throat.

Naruto's trembling hand scrambled against the wooden bedframe when a particularly strong gust of wind escaped into the room, the slight chill of the air burning down her throat and transforming her light wheezing into a more violent and tearing fit of coughs, tiny blades of wind slicing all the way down her trachea and to her lungs. By the time the episode subsided, tears were back in her eyes and Naruto curled into herself, the throbbing in her arm more prominent.

But no. Those two were definitely alive, something within Naruto begged for her to believe it and who was she to argue. Haku and Zabuza were strong, stronger than almost anyone she knew, and they would be able to easily go through Gato's forces without a scratch while Kakashi wouldn't leave his team alone and vulnerable just to chase them down.

No, more importantly, while she was on the topic of her last moments of memory…

Who in their right mind jumps in front of a lightning fist willingly, and for an enemy she thought might be a good person for Kami's sake? She did. _Of course _she did. Uzumaki Naruto was known as the most stubborn and unpredictable kunoichi in Konoha if nothing else. Well, that and a notorious prankster. And the kyuubi's vessel. And future Hokage. Can't forget that.

But still.

Naruto laughed at her own thoughts. Who was she kidding, she was glad she jumped in front of the attack; only she would ever survive such a massive blow. Note to self: thank the fox for facilitating her survival through her whimsical stupidity one of these days. Only she in her right mind would think of two enemy nin hell-bent on killing her and her team as precious people.

She was totally bat shit crazy.

Naruto smiled and licked her cracked lips, sticky moisture coating them before carelessly swiping sweat and tears from her face. She hadn't realized how thirsty she was. Or _hungry_, the red head mourned when her stomach made its own protests known. Naruto grumbled in annoyance, running a hand through her locks. The strands were tangled and stiff, more likely still caked with blood and tainted water from the fight. The awareness of her desperate need to shower only made the girl grumble even more.

Luckily, Naruto thought, she could at least fix one of these problems right away. With a happier grin that Naruto was pretty sure split her lip, purple eyes zoomed in on her prize.

There, on the dresser: an unassuming clay cup of water. With a dry grin and another fit of coughs, Naruto guzzled the contents greedily, savoring the simple wetness of the liquid slithering down her throat. It was a cool salve to the tenderness there.

"Mmm," Naruto hummed appreciatively, gently placing the cup back down where she found it. Now she only needed food and bathing.

Clearing her throat, the redhead pushed aside the sheets from her body, arm protesting all the while. The stupid thing was sore, objecting to any and all movement, but the pain was all shoved away into the back of Naruto's mind. She was already pretty much healed, she could feel it in her movements, and she'd had worse before. A little post-blackout soreness was something the girl knew she could deal with.

Slowly, the sheets tumbled from the bed and pooled and the floor in a messy heap, leaving a few stray strings tangled in Naruto's legs. With a roll of her eyes, Naruto hastily discarded the sheet's web and flung away without a thought.

Unhurriedly turning to dangle her legs over the side of the bed, Naruto eyed the sheets warily. It was a cold day, and she had no socks, and the sheets were already dirty… With a shrug, the Uzumaki girl slid off the bed to stand upon the cloth resting on the ground. It was already filthy and strung with her sweat, a little feet wouldn't make much of a difference, Naruto figured sagely with a self-assured nod.

Naruto wobbled for a moment, a sharp pain in her limbs unbalancing her, but hastily straightened herself.

Cramps, Naruto realized with a pout, before going through a couple of light stretches to ease her weary muscles. A couple squats here, maybe a lunge or two, rolling her shoulders and wrists until they cracked and released the tension building there with her muscles screaming protest all along the way. Wimpy bastards, her limbs, couldn't take a couple of light stretches in the morning.

Finally, Naruto slowly bent backwards until her palms tentatively made contact with the floor. She winced, less because of the now absent pains and more because the resounding crack from her back. Also, as the redhead had suspected, the floor was so _cold_.

"Fuck," Naruto whined, shifting from one hand to the other in a fruitless attempt to stave off the chill.

So intent on her body's aches and sensations—and her attempt at pulling herself away from wherever her mind had been before waking up—Naruto never heard the padding of feet approaching, or the tell-tale squeak of the hinges, or the distinct gasp. However, it was definitely hard for the Uzumaki to miss the thud of a thick clay cup as it rolled just into her eyesight.

With a flash of unprecedented paranoia, Naruto rapidly sprung out of her arched position and into a low and defensive stance, one she couldn't recall ever knowing seeing as it wasn't the academy taijustu or even a position for her own breed of horridly sloppy street warfare. Despite that, the calm precision of her feet slipping into a staggered and wide set foundation, one hand raised for a quick strike and the other brushing tauntingly at her thigh, Naruto felt like the foreign positioning was an old friend.

Still, that shit was weird.

"Wha-?!" the girl cried, losing balance with the fantastical feeling of just _knowing_ and fell to the floor. Her back slammed painfully against the side of the bedside drawer before her butt kissed the ground.

"Damnit," Naruto muttered, rubbing at her back and not feeling any pain or muscle strain at the movement. Her purple eyes begrudgingly lifted to see who had entered the room.

Blinking once, then twice, Naruto shook off the bizarre feeling that her teammate's long hair seemed out of place like all the other weird and out of place thoughts and feelings she'd had since waking up. If anything, this was the shortest Naruto could remember Sakura having it since they were really young.

Hand finding rest on the unobtrusive cup, Naruto picked the thing up.

"Hey, Sakura-chan, I think you dropped something!" Naruto chirped loudly and with a sheepish chuckle, though a happy smile nestled onto her face. It was nice to finally see someone she knew and could latch reality to. The pink hair, more than any four walls, calmed her poor heart and solidified her belief that she was safe.

Team Seven was here, and they were safe. Kakashi would keep them safe.

At the dumbstruck look that seemed permanent or Sakura's face, Naruto took it as an invitation to stand and become at least somewhat presentable. Smiling brilliantly, her purple eyes closing with the sheer force of her grin, Naruto held out the cup in her hand. A second passed by, then a minute, but her pink-haired teammate never removed the cup from her grasp.

Eventually, Naruto opened her eyes with a less enthusiastic smile to see Sakura's brows crunched down in thought and her emeraldine eyes swimming with some odd emotion.

Naruto ran a hand through her stiffly disgusting mop of hair and gulped. Maybe she had done something wrong? Said something wrong? Oh Kami, was Sakura going to hit her again?

The pinkette took a slow, calculated step towards the short girl who was nervously shifting her weight with wide eyes and an anxious smile.

Sakura raised a pale hand, convincing Naruto to close her eyes and brace for impact, when instead icy fingers hesitantly found rest upon her cheek. There was a beat of silence then…

"Cold cold cold!" Naruto cried, smacking away Sakura's hand. A violent bout of shivers wracked her form and Naruto wished they were back in the warm confines of Konoha, her home always being of the warmer climate. Unfortunately, while her eyes had chronicled her weapons pouch resting on one side of the room, her orange jacket was nowhere to be found and Naruto was left shivering in her tank top and bandages.

Hunching in defeat, Naruto realized that warmth was on her agenda at the moment.

"Naruto…? How come you're awake?"

Violent eyes met green at the words, and Naruto tilted her head with a triumphant grin. Still, there was something in her eyes then, a burning emerald fire Naruto couldn't place. It reminded her of something familiar.

"Well, I assume it's 'cause I'm all better?" Naruto quipped happily, again rolling her shoulders to prove that, yes, her arm no longer held an excruciating pain. Naruto belatedly pondered what Haku and Zabuza were up to while she was out. Kami she hoped they were alright, those bastards.

A flash of two bodies, side by side with a combined pool of blood growing underneath them, wrestled its way into her head and Naruto's smile dropped. The damn picture just wouldn't leave her alone.

The image quivering in her mind dropped just in time to notice Sakura's eyes hardened. The girl had her pink hair tied in a high ponytail, a new look for Sakura, to keep her hair out of her face. Naruto was sure that her teammate usually spent her time minimizing the amount of attention paid to her forehead instead of making it more prominent, but Naruto thought the look suited her well anyway.

Sakura's hand, once outstretched with a clay cup, was now crossed in front of her chest along with her other arm in an angry huff. Her pale pink lips twisted into an annoyed scowl.

"No, that's not what I mean..." she growled with a sharp roll of her eyes. Only, it wasn't because of exasperation, but rather anger or something of the sort. Naruto didn't have the time to place it when Sakura began to speak once again, "How come _you_ are awake when Sasuke-kun hasn't even opened his eyes!"

The last bit was a high shriek, and Naruto took a step back in realization.

She had finally recognized that burn in Sakura's gaze and wondered how she hadn't placed it before. It was a look she had grown up with, the accusing glare filled with hate and hurt and anger that Naruto had received every day in Konoha. Now it was coming from Sakura, too. Naruto's eyes widened in hurt.

Naruto knew Sakura didn't like her, at all really, but for some reason this animosity from her had hit her hard with surprising force. Even with those eyes burning through her, her mind screamed, "This is wrong! This is Sakura-chan we're talking about!" But honestly, Naruto was almost expecting it eventually, if not now then sooner or later.

Naruto clenched her fists under her legs in an attempt to hide her trembling and stop the shuddering breaths.

"It's been three days and he hasn't even _opened his eyes_, yet you're here walking around like nothing hit you! Why?" Sakura screeched, small face growing redder and redder until it was practically purple. Her body was wracked with so much fury, that she was shaking.

Naruto gulped and hunched her shoulders, shrinking into herself, clasping and unclasping her hands at her sides. At this point Naruto couldn't tell if her goosebumps were due to the chill or adrenaline. Of course, she wouldn't have to debate it if she just had her damned orange jacket.

"You…" Sakura growled again, Naruto flinching at the words, "You…I thought you're aorta was torn, you know!" she shrieked angrily, her arms now swinging around her with emotion, "that'd you'd bleed out, but you… you… you're fine…"

Naruto bit her lip at the pure fire in her green gaze before it transmuted into a dulled glassiness, one that only told of fear.

"Thank Kami you're fine…" Sakura muttered. Water built in the corner of the pinkette's eyes, and Naruto panicked. "Kakashi woke up after the second day when he fought Zabuza, but Sasuke-kun… he…"

"Sakura… I-" Naruto began, feeling the strangest need to comfort the girl and wipe away all her pain. Hold Sakura in her arms and allow her to cry it out before vowing that she'd never cry because of Sasuke again, because Naruto would bring the bastard back, promise. And it was her nindo, of course, to never break her word and protect her precious people. And damn it all if Sakura wasn't a precious person, if Kakashi didn't deserve to be released of the burden of letting his student go, if-

"Baka, get back in bed before you tear the wound open again," Sakura sighed admonishingly, almost resigned. Naruto hadn't noticed that her arm was reaching for her teammate or that she took a step closer, her heart burning in shame yet trilling with determination. She blinked owlishly.

The redhead didn't know where that particular feeling came from, so she chalked it up as her failing to protect Sasuke in the ice dome and being used as bait to get him hurt.

Sakura pressed on, oblivious to the turmoil poisoning her teammate's mind. Pushing her gently back into bed before scowling at the sheet on the floor—shit, Naruto knew she should have just folded the damn thing—Sakura's trembling voice only got shakier as she said, "You really are lucky, Naruto. Not only did you lose a massive amount of blood, but you also had chakra exhaustion. I have no idea how you survived, honestly."

The last bit was so soft and quiet, if Sakura hadn't decided to sit on the edge of her bed Naruto wouldn't have heard it.

So Naruto smiled goofily. "Really?" she asked in awe, "I must be amazing then! No wait, I _knew_ I was amazing!" Naruto guffawed heartily, throwing a couple of punches at an invisible foe.

Turning to throw out some other cocky claims, Naruto only found furious green eyes set in a frowning Sakura's face. No, forget frowning, the pinkette's expression could be likened more to a snarl of a lioness about to pounce. Naruto gulped.

"Naruto, you…. You… baka!" Sakura screeched in a squeaky voice, raising a clenched fist and bring it down hard on red locks. Naruto could feel the bump rising when another smack landed on her good shoulder.

"Oi!" Naruto barked, scrunching her eyes shut in trepidation, "Is that how you treat your injured teammate?"

Body tensed and ready for another blow, Naruto never expected the trembling arms to wrap around her neck or the furiously shaking head that rested on her chest. Nor did Naruto ever believe that Sakura would ever end up sobbing into her. The girl had made it very clear that Naruto wasn't much of a teammate, let alone friend. However, Sakura's embrace was a freezing hold on her torso and Naruto couldn't find it in herself to care about the temperature.

Sakura was hugging her.

Naruto's face lit ablaze with a dark red blush and her heart sped up pleasantly. The pinkette's hair, brushing and tickling her nose, smelt soft and sweet, just like she always imagined.

Sakura was hugging her.

"I really am so happy you are okay, baka."

However, before Naruto could move her arms soothing around her teammate's shoulders, Sakura had already popped up, wiped at her eyes, and rushed out the door yelling, "I'll go find Kakashi-sensei!"

Her form disappeared for a moment before her head came back into Naruto's line of sight. Sakura smiled prettily at her, causing Naruto's blush to deepen, before she disappeared again with the sound of footsteps falling away. Sakura always had a cute smile to go with beautiful eyes, Naruto thought numbly, giddiness rising up in her chest, and for them to be directed at herself…

Then she blinked, and Naruto's jaw slackened and hung open. When did she ever think Sakura was cute? The redheaded Uzumaki flinched at the remembrance as the pink heat in her cheeks blanched rapidly. It was…. That was… She was…?

Dropping her gaze down to her chest in shocked thought before Naruto's eye twitched.

The girl had wiped her nose on her shirt! Sakura's snot was now residing messily on her chest, that little-!

Naruto growled to herself and peeled her shirt from her sore body. The cloth was flung to the floor with a jerk of her good arm and Naruto took it upon herself to go find another shirt in her bag to wear. With only a minimal amount of coaxing, the Uzumaki got her muscles to listen despite protests, stumbling over to the black knapsack abandoned by the bureau next to her.

With a deft movement, the girl sent her hand fishing for a new shirt and maybe even some pants. Who knew how long she'd been wearing her current pair. Taking a furtive glance to the bandages secured around her shoulder, Naruto quickly deduced that they were relatively new, though whether her team had changed her while patching her up…

Heat returned with a vengeance to Naruto's face at the thought of Kakashi changing her out of her clothes. Her cheeks only reddened even further when she realized it was most likely Sakura who actually dressed her, seeing as her sensei was a guy and Sasuke was out of comission.

The shaking of her head might have jostled her ever-growing headache, but it was worth it just to get rid of the unfamiliar and alien thoughts from her brain. She did _not_ like Sakura that way, that was just… weird.

No, not just weird, but absolute bullshit that was never happening in the universe. Sure, she admired the girl for her smarts and for making it through all the childhood bullies, but Sakura was a girl! And Naruto was a girl. And she liked guys! Hell, she had a crush on-!

Naruto buried her face in her arms with a groan as her face felt as if it would literally melt off with how hot it was.

What in the literal fuck was wrong with her today?

First, all these creepy ghosts converging and attacking her, and then her sudden questioning of attraction because she was _most definitely straight_ and she was so confused that she wanted to either laugh or cry but couldn't figure which was worse. Instead she let out a half strangled squeak.

A flash of silver was all it took to sweep away all other thoughts from Naruto's head.

"Naruto."

And with cold dread, Naruto's amethyst eyes hesitantly flickered upwards to the owner of the chilled voice. AKA, a very irate, terrifyingly calm, absolutely relaxed, Hatake Kakashi. Naruto had never seen him angry in her life, being his genin for only two or so months, but she knew that he was seething by the too high curl of his eye smile and the subtle twitch of muscle in his forearm. They were his tells, Naruto knew, and as hidden and miniscule they were, Naruto knew them all too well.

The genin licked her lips, her blush never fading. She had yet to put her new shirt on and was clad only in her wrappings. Not that mad, pissed off, rightly furious Kakashi cared about a prepubescent mongrel like her, but Naruto was sweating bullets and dying of embarrassment and fear so she did what any girl in her right mind would do.

"PERVERT!" she screeched, flinging her open bag at her sensei and diving behind the bed for cover. Her hands wrapped around her chest in protection and she could feel the blush creep down her chest and all the way to her stomach. Maybe he'd be so affronted by the accusation—truth!—that he'd walk out and come back later, allowing Naruto to prepare herself for the scolding. She had, after all, prevented him from completing their mission and almost died on top of it.

Oh, he was going to be way more than pissed.

Naruto surreptitiously slipped on a new tank top she was able to filch before her attack, and dared an anxious peek backwards.

Her embarrassed gaze quickly grew to a horrified one.

Still stoic, unmoving, was the angry sensei she ran from with her clothes, cup of ramens, sharpening stones, and _underwear_ strewn around him and across his body. Said man lethargically picked up a simple pair of orange underwear with penguins dancing across it off his head, gazing at it uninterestedly before flinging it away.

Naruto was mortified, sure that she could actually die of humiliation.

"Why oh why couldn't that chidori have killed me," she whimpered, flinging herself down behind the bed in hiding and willing herself out of existence.

"Pardon," Kakashi's icy voice interrupted her and made her squeak, "I didn't quite hear what you said, genin."

Naruto bolted upright and rigid, on her feet so fast she was surprised she didn't pull anything. Then again, she had stretched this morning.

"I said," she started with a squeak before calling upon her right to fury as a woman. Naruto turned towards him with a blazingly red face, making her look something like a tomato, "I am changing, pervert, so get out of my room."

His frigid glare at her words forced her to add the squeaking "Please?" at the end of her sentence, but Kakashi didn't budge. Instead, he carefully closed the door to the room before leaning against the wall.

Naruto was perfectly content with letting the silence fester between them, notwithstanding her inherent nature to be loud and well, annoying. But despite being relatively uncouth when it came to almost everything, the redheaded girl was absolutely positive that being her obnoxious and loud self would make things worse than they already were. If it wasn't Kakashi's face or his lightly spasming forearm, then the lack of porn definitely told her to keep her mouth shut.

So Naruto's mouth stayed shut as Kakashi watched her hide behind the bed with eyes of a hawk, gaze darkened into a deep obsidian. The Uzumaki attempted to gulp only to be met with a disturbingly dry throat and the wish for more water. Also, the belligerent rumble from her traitorous stomach didn't help at all.

And through it all Kakashi just stared. And stared. And stared some more. It was obvious that he was attempting to intimidate her, and Naruto had to fight against the admittance that he was succeeding prodigally. She was pretty sure that if looks could kill, she'd have been belly up a while ago.

So Naruto stewed in the silence and prayed to the almighty Kami above that Kakashi would just end her quickly without pain.

"Stop cowering behind the bed."

Naruto's purple eyes sparked with righteous fury.

"Uzumaki Naruto does not cower!" Naruto proclaimed loudly, a blush of anger sporting across her nose. During the yell, she had popped up and jumped over the bed to stand in front of her sensei indignantly. It took her all of five seconds to realize her mistake, but it was too late to back down now.

Crossing her arms and popping her hip out like she had seen Ino do on a daily basis, Naruto scowled in a way she hoped was menacing, but from the lack of any movement or recognition in the jounin's eyes, Naruto had to assume that Kakashi was unfazed except for a small flicker of his achievement.

Straightening up just a bit so that he was looking down at her in an almost casual way, Kakashi asked, "Why did you do it, Naruto?"

Rolling her eyes, Naruto barked out thoughtlessly, "I already told you, you stupid scarecrow, that I don't cower." She roguishly blew on a stray strand of crimson hair, but the tress was so stiff from sleep and sweat that it didn't budge. Naruto mindlessly remembered her need to shower, suddenly aware of the stench practically radiating off of her. Her nose scrunched up, disgusted.

Not that Kakashi cared. Instead the jounin was growling in frustration and considering how very lucky Naruto was that he was a very patient man. He watched as her sharp purple eyes wavered into the fuzziness of thought. "I meant, _Naruto_," he rumbled, gaining her attention again, "why did you stop me?"

Naruto blinked, before shrinking back in recollection as to why her sensei was there. She had totally forgotten in the heat of the moment. Stupid anger always getting the best of her. "Because."

"Because isn't an answer," Kakashi hissed. Naruto watched a particularly violent spasm in his arm muscle in her peripherals, knowing that she was currently playing with fire.

Not that such knowledge ever stopped her before.

"Yes it is," Naruto answered stupidly, clamping her mouth shut right after the words left her.

Kakashi lazily blinked, as if stalling in an attempt to calm down. When he was done, he said, "It is not."

"Yes. It is," she parroted again, nervously rolling a foot on the ground. She knew she was pushing it by the way Kakashi's shoulders had begun to tense, but Naruto soldiered through the dark glare he sent her by averting her gaze to the brass doorknob. There were a few scratches, here and there, with some black flakes smattering across the surface. Overall though, the thing was pretty shiny…

And Kakashi sighed. Not an exasperated, oh-you-foolish-little-rascal-you sigh, but rather an I'm-seriously-losing-my-patience-as-a-homicidal-ninja way. There was a low rumbled in his chest as the air passed through his nose noisily, and Naruto took an unconscious step back. She could practically see the coiling muscles ready to attack under his skin.

"Naruto, I'm not going to fight with you over this, not now," he began, voice velvety smooth and cool against her ear. If she didn't know any better, Naruto would say he was trying to soothe her, but the girl's instincts screamed "predator!" and urged her to be far away. If it wasn't for her stubbornness battling for her to stand her ground, she'd be back behind the bed by now.

Kakashi continued, either oblivious or ignoring the genin's movements, "Right now, I'm furious, however, that my genin refuses to give me, their commanding officer, a reason as to why they'd do something so reckless and absolutely stupid." His voice gained volume towards the end, inflicted with a tone that made Naruto feel like she was a tiny, idiotic child instead of a kunoichi in her own right.

"Because they didn't deserve to die!" Naruto blurted in indignant anger, quivering with restrained emotion. She didn't even flinch when Kakashi's eye drilled a hole into her or when he said his next words.

"Naruto… it isn't about who deserves or doesn't deserve to die. If that's what you think being a shinobi is about, you should quit now."

Kakashi let the silence foster between them again, and Naruto took the moment to think about Haku, his gentle smile and tinkling laughter that made him oh so very Haku. There was a kindness in the boy's eyes that Naruto had never experienced in anyone else, especially when focusing on his master. Even Zabuza, gruff and grouchy as he was, held life in him that was unique and vivacious. The mysterious gaze the missing nin gave her on the bridge, one full of sadness and regret and admiration swirling within. His mouth twitching into a proud smile when Haku told him not to kill her, for that's what Naruto now realized what it was.

These people did not deserve to die, so why couldn't she be the one to make it so? Why were they there with these feelings and with knowledge and with morals and values and beliefs if they couldn't decide to change somebody else's fate?

Shinobi weren't just tools for missions, Naruto knew. Kakashi had made that clear on plenty occasions. They were people, and they could choose what to do.

"Being a shinobi is about the mission and protecting Konoha. That, above anything else, is what you should be focused on."

Naruto's eyes darted defiantly to meet the hardness of Kakashi's. His hands weren't resting lackadaisically in his pockets anymore, but rather running through his hair as if distressed. The calm and aloof copy nin looked distraught, lecturing his genin.

"What about all that stuff about teammates first, then?"

By the stiffening of Kakashi's body, Naruto knew she threw a low blow. At the same time, she couldn't find it in herself to care. A loan whining sound got caught in Kakashi's throat as he retorted, "Naruto, that is not what we're talking about and you know it. Zabuza and Haku are not teammates. They wouldn't have hesitated to kill you or any of us."

"But Haku _didn't_ kill Sasuke, and he didn't kill me either!" Naruto cried out, opening her arms as if the gesture could sway Kakashi's solid stillness. "He totally could have, too," she mumbled quietly.

"He was willing to, if Zabuza told him to," Kakashi countered coldly.

"But he wasn't going to. I knew it."

The jounin scoffed, pushing off the wall to brush past the smaller genin. The angry look Kakashi sent while he was passing by said all it needed to make Naruto understand he was disagreeing.

Kakashi hadn't treated her like a kid in forever, not since… Naruto paused for a moment, delirious in thought and the pounding headache that afflicted her. Kakashi always treats her like a kid. To him, she was just a little brat under his care and protection. She didn't know why she felt so betrayed that he didn't believe in her word, after all she did almost kill herself, but that didn't stop it from hurting.

They'd been through so much; so many battles and so many losses were shared between them, Naruto thought that she had finally reached an area where they could be considered peers on the same level instead of student and teacher. She even beat him with Sakura last time-!

She twirled around to face him as he closed the window with a soft thump, breaking her mind out of whatever rambling was going on in her head. She couldn't really remember it, only cursing the train of thought for leaving her with a ricocheting headache pounding between her temples.

Naruto eyed her sensei's white knuckles resting on the window sill and wondered how much control it took for him not to slam it.

"But it all worked out in the end!" Naruto whispered hoarsely against the slamming of her brain. Kami why a headache and why now?

"But that's it! It won't always work out in the end! You can't make all your enemies friends, Naruto. That's not how the world works," he hissed back angrily.

"It's none of your business, sensei!" Naruto cried, throwing her hands to the air.

The bastard didn't understand! He was supposed to, but he didn't and it just frustrated her so much! It frustrated her more than the two minutes to cook her ramen or more than when some stupid civilian didn't appreciate her pranks or when this damned headache mercilessly pulled at her brain like it was taffy!

Naruto's chest was heaving as the words echoed through her and she realized what she had said. However, the girl froze at her sensei's answer.

"It is my business when I almost killed you!"

Naruto's jaw slackened, completely taken aback. Her arms fall limply to her sides, at a loss of what to do with the energy pumping through them.

"And even if it wasn't for that," Kakashi continues a little shaky, seeing his opening to talk, "I'm your jounin sensei, Naruto."

Naruto pouts, mumbling morosely.

"What?"

"Haku said people only become truly strong when they're trying to protect what's important to them…" Naruto mumbled again, looking away petulantly, but she didn't stop talking. Kakashi had to understand why she did what she did. "When I was watching Haku and Zabuza… I felt the same way! And, ok, I know they were technically enemies, but… but I liked them! Is that bad?"

Naruto pulled her glaring eyes to look at Kakashi's own stoic one definatly, daring him to disagree. There was a simmer of unknown emotion in his lone eye's depths, a slight hesitation and maybe even realization. Naruto couldn't truly tell.

But she knew his answer. She heard it from him before somehow, after visiting a cold and lonely grave that brought a bitter sadness to her soul. She didn't know who was in the grave, or why they were there, or even when Kakashi and she had gone to such a place together, but Naruto remembered saying those same words. And most importantly she remembered Kakashi's answer.

It was the answer that grounded her through her life and hard times when she questioned herself and her beliefs. When she wanted to break down and give in to all the hatred festering in the world and the cynics who told her it was impossible. She needed to hear that answer, see the small, light smile on his face that agreed with her and the words to assuage her fear.

_No… I liked them, too._

"Shinobi who empathize with their enemies die, Naruto."

Her heart plummets. That's not… that's not what he was supposed to say.

"I'm glad you're healing well."

She knew those weren't the words he was meant to say.

And he left, brushing past her with a wisp of a comforting hand on her shoulder in understanding and agreement. But then the contact was lost and Naruto was left staring angrily at the ground, feeling as if she were lied to.

Those words… Those weren't the words Kakashi was intended to say.

**So I just want to say, I think fem!naru having a "crush" on Sakura out of nowhere is hilarious. Poor girl xD (but no, that is not going to be a paring). Also, the talk with Kakashi initially was going to address so much more and be a lot more lighthearted and maybe even have Naruto confess about the dream but... 1) Kakashi would be pissed af and no lightheartedness allowed with an angry Kakashi 2) mystery is always fun :) Kakashi is still reeling about the Obito thing and doesn't know how to talk to Naruto about it, and Naruto is still confused as hell about everything going on and they are both stubborn about these things, so no talking about Naruto's dream/genjustu/thing :) too bad (what are your thought about keeping it a secret, btw? Good? Bad?)**

**Haku and Zabuza will appear next chapter, as will Sasuke, and then a return to Konoha like the mighty team they are! What do you think will change when they get back thanks to Naruto? Anything guys? :)**

**Also, it's hinted here that Naruto has... a CRUSH?! On NOT Sakura?! WHAT? hahahaha can any of you guess who it is and why? If you get it right, I'll give you a gift of your choosing (that is within my power) :) think of why original Naruto likes Sakura, it might help hahaha**

**Either way: slow chapter, I'm sorry, I love you guys, thank you SO MUCH TO THOSE WHO REVIEWED (I'll be answering in PMs again after this chapter), and please PLEASE tell me what you thought about this chapter. Good or bad? Criticism? Too boring and too much detail on worthless things? Just right? Would you like more description of the environment instead of actions and internal thoughts? Do you want to know more about what Kakashi is thinking? Do want to maybe even just say Milkshake? I'd be fine with just the word Milkshake.**

** Etc, please PLEASE give me feedback, it makes me want to write.**

**Other things that make me want to write are ideas on what you want to see! What its you want Naruto to visit the land of iron or something absolutely random like the Aburame clan structure or something, I LOVE delving into areas of the setting and plot that usually go untouched and unexplored and unchanged to create something new, so if you want to see something, say it now!**

**Love you all, hoping you're having a great weekend~**

**Koby Out!**


	4. Hallucinations

**SO holy fast update batman! You can all thank fotsvamp for that one, by the by, even if it is still a wekk late from when I promised them...? I AM SO SORRY Either way, this chapter is the ending of the wave arc and the beginning of who-knows-where this story will go and take me and you guys (seeing as its really an exploration of what would lead to what, in my view). I'm sorry that this one is also pretty slow paced in terms of pure action, but I think I did well with team tension and Naruto/vision tension and gah, there's so much more I want to put in this story that purely involves straight characterization and relationships I'm sorry if everything I write is a slow burn :( I really try to take my time with things...**

**this chapter is specifically geared towards showing how the event changed Sakura, her relationship with Naruto, and and how that affects team dynamics (plus Kakashi still being out of it), and finally we see Sasuke a bit too :) More of him soon.**

**So um... coughcoughsorryboutthatcoughcough back to the usual ditsy and annoying AN... thank you all for the amazing amount of reviews and favs and follows, you guys make me want to write and continue to write and push my muse! I never thought that my writing would get response, so you honestly make me feel like the luckiest person ever :) An honest thanks to you all before starting the story!**

**Moving on!**

**Don't Own Naruto**

_Hallucination:_

_A sensation or perception that isn't real, yet appears to be genuine to the person experiencing it. Just as they may be caused by several different diseases or health conditions, hallucinations can manifest in many different ways as well. Such manifestations may be feeling bodily sensations (crawling, proprioception anomalies, itching), hearing nonexistent sounds (music, footsteps, banging of doors or windows), seeing imaginary sights (people, patterns, lights) tasting unknown tastes and smelling unknown smells. The most common of these is hearing voices and whispers, whether they are critical, negative, positive, demanding, etc. _

_It is imperative to send individuals experiencing hallucinations to a medical professional._

It was awkward for Naruto the next couple days. Sasuke still had yet to wake up, making it the seventh day of his recovery, and she was still "bedridden." A proverbial ball and chain that went by the name of Haruno Sakura had all but tied her to her bed for rest despite the fact that Naruto felt perfectly fine aside from some killer headaches.

On quite a few occasions, Naruto had made a mad dash for the window only to find that a woman's intuition was a terrifying thing, Sakura always knowing the exact time and trick she had decided to implement for escape. And if it wasn't Sakura stopping her, then it was Tsunami, both of whom proved that an upset woman was more chilling than any ninja.

So, while she and Sasuke were out of commission, Sakura had taken it upon herself to stay busy at all times, leaving her to flit around everywhere: going out to the village, helping Tsunami cook, mother-henning around her teammates, crying in Naruto's room about Sasuke—to which Naruto hated and loved at the same time, blushing like a school girl much to her chagrin—and even training, if what the pinkette told Naruto was true. Apparently Kakashi had gotten a lot more silent in the past week, not that Naruto would know, and with that silence came a more serious demeanor towards his one able-bodied student.

Water-walking, Sakura told Naruto with sparkling eyes, was even greater than tree-climbing. Naruto seriously doubted the claim considering tree climbing had taken her three painful and long days to get even close to being able to do efficiently, but who was Naruto to knock out that spark of confidence and happiness that accompanied her teammate's gaze?

Sakura always had confidence issues; if her being trained one on one by Kakashi helped that, Naruto supposed she could stand being stuck in bed for a while longer (as long as Sasuke at least woke up to stop the monstrous storm of tears Sakura cried sometimes when the boy didn't waken).

Naruto rolled purple eyes at the memories. It was upsetting the first night, attempting to deal with a suddenly emotion and hysteric girl who gave her randomly butterflies—butterflies for Kami's sake!—crying on her shoulder. But by the second night, after Naruto was assured that Sasuke was actually perfectly fine and resting off the strain of their fight, the Uzumaki girl was done with the touchy feely emotions and odd blushing.

Seriously. Something was physically wrong with her to be blushing that much.

Maybe Sakura actually was right and Naruto was still injured and needed bed rest.

However, it wasn't the occasional fuzzies around Sakura that made it awkward. No, that award went to her jounin sensei who, whenever passing Naruto's open door, would stare at her for a good three minutes with this weird almost-constipated look on his face before promptly turning around and disappearing off somewhere. It was always the same: the feeling of being watched, eye contact, Kakashi rubbing at his arm subconsciously, blinking once, and then disappearance.

Sakura told her that she tried following him after his bout of weirdness one time, but couldn't even make it out of the house before he was gone from her senses, something that infuriated the pink-haired girl.

Naruto wasn't completely sure she knew why he was acting strange; the idea of impaling and almost killing your own student had to have been traumatizing, maybe even infuriating, but damn that didn't even come close to what emotions swam in her sensei's eyes. So deep and well-guarded, Naruto's stubborn anger almost keeled over in guilt every time he looked at her, but she wouldn't falter.

She was mad at him for his words, and she would stay that way; more often than not Naruto found herself breaking their stares to growl menacingly at her blanket. She was never sure, after thinking it over, if she was angrier at him for his words or at herself for causing his guilt.

So, Naruto simply took to asking Sakura to shut the door when leaving.

And yet, despite being glued to the bed and becoming Sakura's almost unwilling confidant and Kakashi's bitter guilt trip, Kami had decided Naruto had needed more complications in her life. So, added to the weirdness, the awkwardness, and everything in between was the fact that she was seeing things in her dreams.

Not like things as in "oh I'm now the Hokage, hear me roar," or "hey I don't have to pay for any more ramen ever in my life," or even "wow look at Sasuke groveling at my feet and begging for me to be his master," which was usually her favorite and most frequent dream. No, those would all constitute as normal, and whatever Naruto was seeing could never be defined as normal.

She was seeing the ghosts, the dull throb of voices and words pounding at her head in what Naruto was sure became the reason of her nigh constant headaches. The girl could never understand what they said, and many times their faces were a blotchy grey that distorted in her mind, and when they weren't they slipped away as soon as she tried to recall them, only the strong inclination that she was _supposed_ to remember and know what she saw being left behind.

But they were always there, still present despite the fact that she tore off what she thought to be a genjutsu seal, and the visions were growing in intensity.

It was almost never the same scene, and Naruto didn't go back to the ruined city with the crystal pillar, but in her dreams she was always flung from one whirling sight to the next, people, faces, jutsus, fights, laughs, and towns all things she had never experienced in her life yet felt she had some kind of deep-seated connection to.

She often woke up crying or laughing at something she couldn't remember, only to be hurled into a roaring headache when she tried to force the memories back.

Still, sometimes the visions were as clear as day, though those were usually the harder scenes to think about.

Once, she even saw an older version of herself, swirling red hair down to her ankles and vibrant amethyst eyes peering deep into her soul.

Naruto shivered at the memory of the scene. She had to have been at least a decade older than she was now, and her face was rounder than hers currently and dream-Naruto didn't have any whiskers high up on her tanned cheeks. Thin lips, pale from the touch of death, would utter muted words that barely tickled her ears, instead just droning on in a light hum. A spark of compassion muddled in with despair flickered in her eyes as blood spewed from her mouth.

Was that how she saw herself in her mind's eye, Naruto wondered morosely. A thick red object had been torn through her stomach, and oddly enough it wasn't fear of death or the fiery will to live that bubbled in her gut at the scene, but just sadness. Maybe even a little happiness, too, which was what scared Naruto the most.

How could she ever be happy to see herself die, especially when it almost paralleled her close call with death due to Kakashi's chidori?

Needless to say, Naruto didn't really want to sleep much after that, and hadn't really slept since then and the ghosts had stopped haunting her.

That was around two days ago.

"Naruto, get back in bed and rest!"

Naruto flinched as the screeching voice grated into her ears, adding fuel to the pulsating headache clutching her skull, but continued stretching nonetheless.

Bending her knees in another crouch, Naruto turned her eyes to stare back at her teammate with a wide smile.

Sakura was in civilian clothing: tight red tank top and cargo pants Naruto was pretty sure were hers. Sakura's green eyes were blazing with womanly fury that Naruto knew all too well from the past couple of days. It wasn't her first time being caught doing "strenuous activity," as Sakura called it.

Another crouch to exercise her currently underused muscles before Naruto moved on, grabbing her right ankle to pull it to her butt and then bending down to her toes.

With a grunt of satisfaction, Naruto could feel the familiar burn in her hamstrings, reveling in the ache.

"Naruto," Sakura growled menacingly. It was a tone that promised hurt and pain, and it was Naruto's first instinct to always be ready to get hit when Sakura used it. However, the Uzumaki had learned to ignore the feeling when she realized Sakura didn't usually resort to smacking her upside the head as she had that first day back.

Naruto smiled in answer, piping up blithely and switching legs, "Yes, Sakura-chan?"

Sakura's eye twitched in anger as she stormed over, arms crossed on her chest and a pulsing vein on her forehead. Naruto idly wondered, watching her teammate stomp over with an aura promising bodily harm, why Sakura hated her forehead so much. It was kind of cute, really.

The feelings of adoration simply punched her in the throat, like they always did when they popped up from nowhere. One second she was thinking of Sakura as the girl she had dreamed of being best friends with, and the next flickering moment, something farther that that would smack her. The worst was that, while familiar in an odd way, the emotion felt foreign, as if it were invading and usurping her thoughts by pushing Naruto to the side in her own mind, and she hated it. It didn't feel natural, and Naruto didn't mean "liking the same sex" unnatural to her, but just like the emotion didn't belong to her: attached in her mind but detached from her.

Naruto bit down hard on her cheek, smiling wider to conceal the internal feelings of conflict rising in her throat.

"You're not healed, so get back in bed." Sakura was seething, pushing at Naruto's back toward the evil-incarnate that called a bed. Only… Naruto didn't want to laze about for another week, she didn't want to go back to sleep to those things, and she didn't want to waste time when she could be training.

Naruto glared at the thing, whining, "But Sakura-chan! I'm fine, honest! See?"

Breaking out of her teammates grasp, Naruto did a back hand spring to land in a low position before going through a couple punches in an attempt to be free of the cursed bed rest. She just had to prove she was okay to Sakura, and she'd be free seeing as there was no way in hell she'd be listening to Kakashi any time soon. That is, if he ever talked to her again.

But Naruto was fine, damnit, and she needed to run and punch and train, not be cooped up in the house. So, with a final flip backwards using only her "bad" arm to propel her into the air, Naruto bowed when sticking the landing, cheeky grin adorning her face.

That is, until a particularly sharp whistling noise caused Naruto to stumble backwards in a heap of limps, a kunai passing just over her shoulder. Scrambling away from the wall as a soft thunk echoed in the room, Naruto stared wide eyes as the throwing knife imbedded itself into the already poor wall.

Sakura, smiling an innocent petite smile, practically skipped over and plucked her weapon from the house and played with it in her hands for a couple seconds as Naruto watched on in horrified confusion.

"But Naruto-chan, you couldn't even catch my kunai," Sakura said sweetly, deftly twirling the weapon around a finger. Naruto chanced a glance at the wall to see a relatively deep indent, a lot deeper than Naruto had remembered Sakura capable of. Naruto's eyes worriedly returned to her teammate's, which were glinting with a sternness and warning.

Slipping the kunai back into her kunai pouch, the green-eyed girl stood there with a delicate smile on her face watching as Naruto's mouth flopped open and closed, stuttering with unspoken words.

What had Kakashi done to the girl?

Luckily for Naruto, though, someone had come to her rescue.

"Oh, come on Sakura," came the gruff voice of Tazuna from the doorway. Naruto focused quickly on the friendly aura, attempting to steer away from the threatening one Sakura was emitting.

Naruto smiled softly. The old man was livelier than when they had first met and wasn't holding a sake bottle in his hand. The straw hat usually laying upon his head or shoulders was missing, too, but that was probably because he was indoors. The lack of stress accumulating from and assassination contract for his head was definitely doing the man some good. And from what Naruto had heard from the past couple days, the bridge was due to be done by tomorrow, another probable cause for the man's relief.

The man grinned and winked at Naruto, who was still floundering on the ground.

Addressing Sakura, the man beseeched, "Everyone wants to meet her! Besides, call it payment for the wall." At this he cackled, motioning towards the clean slice of wall missing thanks to Sakura's throw.

The girl's face turned bright pink to match her hair and she averted her eyes. Kicking at the ground, the genin mumbled out a shy apology, fingering the hem of her shirt in embarrassment. Sakura's eyes flickered from Naruto to Tazuna and then back to Naruto, rolling them lightly with a sigh when she noticed Naruto's purple eyes were widened to an impossible degree that only she could reach for puppy dog eyes.

They sparkled with unshed tears, the genin perfectly ready to let the water-works fly on a moment's notice and Sakura didn't have to guess how annoying a pouting, temper-tantrum-ing Uzumaki Naruto was. She practically threw one every time she lost to Sasuke, and Kami was it maddening.

"Fine… I guess she's ok to come to town with me," Sakura stated slowly, stepping out of the room. She called back, presumably from the stairs as Naruto could pick up the light thumps of footsteps, "Be ready in five, Naru-baka!"

Naruto pouted at the name.

"Your sensei has really done a number on that girl," Tazuna commented, looking out of the door way and after Sakura. When Naruto tilted her head in confusion, the man scratched his goatee and continued. "During the days you were still out, she always came back too tired to do anything but eat and sleep. Always bruises everywhere."

Naruto glanced up curiously at her client, picking herself up from the floor. From what she remembered of her time at the academy and previous team trainings, Sakura was prone to keep the physical exercise to a minimum, always complaining that girl's shouldn't sweat so much in front of boys. This was usually followed by a snide comment about how Naruto herself didn't qualify as a female, but honestly her lack of femininity never really bothered her if it meant getting stronger and closer to her dreams.

The man sighed tiredly and switched his hand to rub at his eyes with a world-weary sigh. "Tsunami tried talking to your sensei about it, and then after that she went to the girl herself but…" Tazuna shrugged, grasping the door knob and turning. He finished by saying, "Sakura just said that if she didn't train she wouldn't be able to protect you and the other kid."

Naruto smiled happily at the revelation, knowing that Sakura was now willing to fight for herself and her dream, now. Knowing that the girl cared enough to protect her was all Naruto wanted to hear. From anyone really.

While wandering in her thoughts, Tazuna had made his movements to leave. However, just before the bridge builder closed the door, Naruto yelled out, "Thanks for convincing her, old man."

He stopped, looked back, and replied, "Don't thank me, you just aren't a gaki without running and yelling everywhere. Besides, I'm only helping because Tsunami is out of the house right now!" He guffawed again, holding his chest like what he said was the funniest thing in the Elemental Nations.

Pouting, Naruto yelled, "Hey!" before quickly degrading into giggles as well. She understood the sentiments as well, after all. Tsunami-san could be _scary_.

By the time Naruto's laughter subsided, the man was gone and her door closed. The girl figured she should probably change before she was late. Stripping off her pajamas, Naruto slipped on an orange tank top and black cargo shorts, finger-combing her unruly hair. Of course, the spikes and messiness didn't disappear, but it was the thought that counted.

With a quick roll of her shoulders and swing of her arms, Naruto was walking towards the door and towards her salvation. Opening the door, she gets a nice view of a Sakura's closed fist preparing to knock.

"Why're you…?" Naruto began, pointing at the staircase. She was sure Sakura had went downstairs to wait for her, so why was she back upstairs?

Sakura lowered her arm and glared as if reading Naruto's thoughts. "You were late," she growled between clenched teeth.

And then it clicked; training with Kakashi must have meant literally hours of wasting time waiting for the incorrigibly late man, and added to the fact that Sakura wasn't always the most forgiving about such things…

Naruto simply laughed, her eyes scrunching at the sides in humor. Kami, her teammate was probably scarred without being able to just waste the hours away by staring at Sasuke. Banging her own fist against her thigh, Naruto's mouth opened to comment when she noticed Sakura's hand twitch towards her kunai pouch. The guffaws hastily morphed into sheepish chuckling, degrading down into nervous clearing of the throat after a jade glare, though the smile alighting her face didn't disappear.

Despite Naruto's acquiescence, Sakura's glare didn't go away until the two of them walked past the room closest to the stairs. Like Naruto's door, it was shut and only silence permeated within. It didn't take much thought to realize that it was the room their third, male teammate was slumbering in when Sakura's glazed eyes latched onto it forlornly.

Naruto clutched a hand at her chest when a sharp pain pierced through her heart. Maybe she was just imagining it, but Sakura seemed really pale lately compared to usual. The pink-haired girl's eyes began to blur with moisture, and Naruto panicked inside.

Floundering, Naruto quickly yelled, "I won't let the teme die until I beat him!" Then she promptly tripped over her own foot and stumbled, righting herself in time to meet Sakura's empty gaze. "He'll be fine, I promise. And I never break my promises," Naruto added confidently, averting her eyes to watch the quiet door. Sasuke would be fine after some sleep. Next thing they knew, the boy would be up and hn-ing like a champ, spouting out his insults and radiating superiority like always, especially now that he had awakened his kekkei genkai.

"So… stop worrying so much?" Naruto worried her lip between her teeth. There was a beat of silence, and for a moment Naruto thought that she'd have to say something more confident and louder to cheer Sakura up.

"As if you'd ever beat my Sasuke-kun, Naru-baka. And don't call him a bastard!" Sakura was three steps down the stairs already, voice loud and admonishing in its all-too-familiar Sasuke worship, but her eyes were soft, just like the smile lighting her face. The pinkette landed a soft punch on her teammate's shoulder with a mock 'hmph' of annoyance.

Despite the harsh words, Naruto laughed heartily and threw her hands behind her head, resting them at the nape of her neck. She watched as her teammate descended, reaching the bottom and turning to send Naruto a meaningful glance, one full of agitation at being made wait but also filled with tenderness, gratitude even.

A dream came back to Naruto then suddenly, one of a Sakura who looked different and acted different, kneeling over a redheaded person. There was blood drenching her pale, delicate fingers, but they were fingers that no longer trembled at the sight of loss and violence, confidently emitting a pale green glow that sang of warmth. And when Sakura turned around, there was a sharp burn in Naruto's chest as Sakura's emerald eyes, set boldly in between a blue diamond on her forehead, stared in defiant agitation and devotion in her direction. Naruto could practically feel the resigned trust in Sakura, her gaze encouraging whatever Naruto was about to do.

Again, words that begged to be heard passed noiselessly through Naruto, but the Uzumaki girl knew that in that moment as an excruciatingly cruel warmth telling of adoration and love spread through her body, Sakura was protecting her somehow, sacrificing for her, and Naruto had bitterly wished for this particular scene to not be a dream.

And maybe the wish was coming true.

Naruto rushed down the steps, taking two at a time, after an admonishing Sakura.

With a smile, Naruto asked as casually as she could, holding on to the rare clarity of one of her visions, "Hey, Sakura-chan? Is it possible that, with my… injuries… that I might have seen things? Like ghosts? Or visions on the future?" Obviously Naruto couldn't hide her enthusiasm well enough, because Sakura snorted with laughter, only to give the red head a deadpan look upon realizing it was a legitimate question.

Sighing, Sakura answered tightly, "If what you're asking is that you were so close to death that you saw the afterlife, I doubt it Naruto. But, I do suppose you might have hallucinated without proper blood or chakra flow to the brain…"

Naruto blinked, too confused to even be offended by Sakura's insinuation at her intellect. "Wha…?"

Sakura groaned, slapping a hand to her face while walking to the main entrance of the small house. "Naruto I swear, did you _ever_ pay attention in class?" At Naruto's sheepish look, Sakura rolled her eyes. She didn't even know why she bothered asking. "Oxygen is necessary for the tissues of your body to function properly, including your brain. When-"

"But nothing was wrong with my lungs Sakura-chan," Naruto commented innocently, bending down to pick up her shinobi sandals from the ground. Sakura silenced her teammate with a vile look of a person interrupted by stupid questions, but kept her anger to herself with the grit of her teeth. The pinkette daintily sat down on the step before starting to put on her own shoes.

"As I was saying. Oxygen, therefore, is needed for the brain to properly process and work. Blood, and the hemoglobin within"—a glance to Naruto told Sakura that she needn't go that far into explanation lest she have to explain more, a rather cumbersome ordeal when Sasuke was sleeping oh so cutely just a floor above and errands to run in a_ timely manner_—"carry oxygen throughout the body and… feed the tissues. With the amount of blood you lost, brain function would probably be severely impaired. That added to the lack of chakra to the brain, which like oxygen the body needs to work properly, due to chakra exhaustion could put a strain on your brain that could possibly lead to hallucinations."

Naruto nodded enthusiastically at the words, though both genin knew she hadn't truly grasped any of the knowledge. However, Naruto understood all she needed to: these vision and dreams—_Hallucinations_, Naruto corrected herself—were relatively normal with injuries. And while not all that common, maybe Naruto's injuries were just as unpredictable as she was. Perhaps it was a super power or something?

Padding the straps of her sandals for good measure, Sakura took Naruto's silence as a cue to start on their way, opening the door and stepping through.

"Now if you're done with nonsense, hurry up. I won't be arriving late just 'cause you were slow, Naru-baka!"

Beaming through the insult now that her fears were assuaged, Naruto commented glibly, "You'd make a good med-nin, Sakura-chan."

The pink haired Konoha genin sent a thoughtful look at her companion before trudging off without another word and Naruto finally received freedom in the form of fresh air and a walk to the center of town.

_H_A_L_L_U_C_I_N_A_T_I_O_N_S_

"You know," Sakura mumbled angrily, swinging open the shop door to an accompanying twinkle of a bell, "heroes don't accept gifts, Naruto."

Blinking, Naruto trailed Sakura into the shop and quickly swallowed a huge chunk of food in her mouth, most of it still unchewed. Sakura glanced back in disgust before walking up to an empty counter and dinging a bell.

"I can't help it if I'm _the_ Uzumaki Naruto, Sakura-chan. Who am I to say no to free food, anyway?" Naruto puffed out her chest with a laugh filled with bold bravado before hastily engorging herself with more onigiri and other miscellaneous foodstuffs that were shoved into her hands in the street. The first time it had happened, Naruto joyously flung herself at her teammate and ranted about them being heroes of the people, gaily chatting Sakura's ear off through her many errands, much to Sakura's chagrin.

Apparently she and her team were now famous in Wave, practically worshipped even, and it was nice to finally get the attention she deserved! It wasn't her fault that Konoha had somehow missed the fact that she was insanely awesome and powerful and forgot to worship her like they should. Maybe Wave could convince them otherwise?

"Kami Naruto, learn to chew at least, before you choke!" Sakura gasped, ringing the bell again impatiently. Her fingers tapped a light staccato on the damp counter, salty and humid air having long ago sunk into the wood.

Food caught in the redhead's throat, causing her to choke for a moment before taking a swig of Wave's famous bush tea to clear her airway. Naruto stuck her tongue out at as Sakura threw her an I-told-you-so look before ringing the bell a third time.

Naruto grinned giddily to herself though, just staring at the thermos of tea being held in her hands. She was acknowledged here, appreciated even, and it was the best feeling in the world. People had already known Sakura as they walked by, the Konoha genin smiling and swiftly moving on to keep her schedule on point. However, upon learning that the red haired girl accompanying her was Naruto, they threw all kinds of food and drinks and mementos at her, thanking her profusely for her part in saving their home. Sure, it had been awkward at first and even confusing, but Naruto couldn't deny that it made her feel better about herself. At least someone wasn't mad she had almost killed herself during the mission.

Chewing on more food, Naruto unconsciously rubbed at the joint where her arm met shoulder, knowing that there wasn't even a scar left of her injury to tell the tale.

Sakura rang the bell again, the fourth time, before a plump middle-aged woman appeared from behind a curtain to approach the counter. Apparently she was the one they were waiting for, because Sakura's tapping fingers dropped to her sides at the sight of the lady.

"Haruno-san, I see you're as prompt as ever. I apologize for being late," the woman said cordially, not in the least upset by the constant bell chiming abuse Sakura had unleashed in the store.

"Maa, it wasn't more than three minutes, Takamori-san," Sakura replied back just as courteously, though Naruto could tell from her teammates profile and the tightness in her jaw that Sakura was just as miffed at the lady's lateness as she had been with Naruto's this morning. The Uzumaki snickered, shoving another rice ball into her mouth.

The woman's eyes slid over at the sound, dark brown eyes scrunching in curiosity at seeing a second, unknown girl in her store. She brushed back a strand of equally dark hair, fallen loose from a low ponytail, before she opened her mouth.

"That's my teammate, Naruto," Sakura answered as politely as she could while still rushing. Takamori couldn't even get a word in, Sakura obviously wanting to do whatever errand there was here quickly. Once again, the shop owner wasn't the least bit ruffled by Sakura's hurriedness.

"Ah, so you're the Naruto-kun that Haku-chan has been telling me about. Pleased to meet you, my name is Takamori Renka." Takamori's soft voice echoed through the following silence, Sakura's back stiffening into a rigid straightness and Naruto's mouth flapping open, half-chewed food displayed for everyone to see.

Naruto hastily rectified her manners by downing a gulp of tea and wiping the dribble with her arm before yelling excitedly, "You know Haku?!"

The redheaded girl, in her excitement, had bound over to the counter to beam at the shop owner. Nobody at the house mentioned the Kiri pair, and there were a couple times Naruto wasn't sure if they had left yet or she had failed in her self-appointed mission, the two dying at Gato's hand like last time.

Wait. What?

Takamori's soothing voice was a salve to Naruto's inner turmoil, and the genin shook off the vestiges of confusion with a whip of her head: "Why yes, he comes here very often to visit, isn't that right Haruno-san?"

Sakura turned her face away from Naruto's scrutiny, mumbling under her breath. Whatever she said made Takamori giggled, one hand covering her mouth daintily as she did so. Naruto tilted her head to the side in confusion as the woman's laughter grew a little in force and Takamori stated as if a peace offering to the increasingly agitated girl, "Here, Haruno-san, why don't we go to the back and finish up in a jiffy."

Sakura hastily nodded her approval, long pink locks swaying up and down frantically with the movements as the girl jogged around the counter and disappeared behind the curtains. Naruto was left in the dimmed herb shop parlor with the faint idea that she was missing something important between the other two females, absolutely confused and grumbling about being left out.

Sighing, Naruto's shoulders slumped in defeat, resigned to waiting, dare she think it, patiently. The girl slammed her last rice ball into her mouth and opened another small package filled with cooked fish. At least her food would keep her company.

That is, until another twinkle and closing of the door caught her attention.

"Naruto-kun?"

Only one person could have such a girly voice that still sounded, somehow, like it belonged to a guy.

Spinning around, Naruto gave off a one hundred watt smile upon seeing the newcomer, the only warning in advance to bolting forward.

"Haku!" she hollered, launching straight to the boy's side. "I'm so happy to see you're ok," Naruto continued happily, leaning back and cupping her hands behind her neck. A light giggle burst from her lips out of pure joy, knowing her friend was alive and well, no matter her sacrifice to achieve it.

"As am I to see you alright, Naruto-kun. We didn't want to leave until we were sure you were healthy," Haku stated in a soft voice, like wind flittering across an ocean. His smile was small in comparison to Naruto's, but the happiness reflected in his eyes easily matched the girl's own.

"We?"

"Well hello to you, too, gaki," a gravelly voice from just behind the effeminate boy said. Despite the harsh and low growl of the tone, Naruto would almost describe it as… sulking, a notion that she wanted to scoff at, especially if the voice belonged to whom she thought it belonged. Naruto steeled a little turning away to look at the other occupant of the room.

Zabuza was as intimidating as ever, bulging muscles on display in his tank top and face mostly covered in bandages. Naruto could easily imagine a row a shark-like teeth hiding underneath the wraps, prepared to tear into an enemy's flesh should the need arise. However, the man's overall intimidation factor was lessoned by two things, the first being that he was rubbing a growing bump on his head from hitting it on the doorway—Ha! Take that tall people!—and the other was because he wasn't carrying around his big ass cleaver he called a sword at the moment.

So, just as Uzumaki etiquette dictated, Naruto blurted the most pressing thought on her mind: "Yo, no brows, where's the sword?" Her cheeky grin grew wider when Zabuza's aforementioned non-brow eyebrows twitched, the movement running down through his nose, mouth, jaw, neck, and finally into his shoulders and arms like a cascading wave. The Konoha genin couldn't be sure if it was the eyebrows comment or the sword comment that bothered him though, and Naruto swore to herself she would find out.

Through gritted teeth, the former Swordsman of the Mist answered in a chillingly calm way, "I don't need the sword to kill people, gaki." The man subtly crossed his arms, childishly enhancing the view of his biceps for good measure.

Naruto's eyebrows furrowed and her lips set, with her face changing into an interesting red hue, at the name. She bristled and opened her mouth to retort when Haku's words beat her to it.

"Zabuza-sama leaves the sword at the base to allow the villagers to feel more at ease," the boy said, stepping past Naruto to lay a gentle hand on the giant man's forearm, "He's even been helping out at the bridge-"

Haku never got to finish the sentence, his pink kimono and long black hair fluttering in the breeze of Zabuza's hand as it smacked over Haku's mouth hastily. Sporting a vibrant blush that arced above the bandages over his face, Zabuza's glare was a lot less effective, even more so when Haku was grinning blissfully. After a couple seconds, Zabuza sighed and ruffled the boy's hair affectionately after removing his hand.

"Aww, Zabuza-chan is just a big softy," Naruto cooed, snickering, the sound growing louder as Zabuza's eyes shot kunai in her direction.

"So how are you, Naruto-kun? Sakura-kun tells me that you're healing very well, miraculously even," Haku intervened, ever calm and peaceful.

Taking the time to stick her tongue out playfully at Zabuza, Naruto answered with a confused scowl on her face, nose scrunched up in thought, "I don't know about miraculous, but there's no longer any pain or mark?" Naruto threw a hook into her other palm for good show, grinning all the way.

Zabuza grunted and muttered, "Wow, that's some healing you got there, squirt."

Naruto's mouth opened in anger at the insult before clacking her mouth shut when Haku spoke up.

"Ah, Sakura-kun, Takamori-san, good afternoon."

"Haku-kun, nice to see you again," Sakura's voice trilled in the air hesitantly. Naruto's ears vaguely picked up the breathy laugh of the shopkeeper. A light brush against her shoulder told Naruto that Sakura had walked up beside her, and the Uzumaki immediately forgot all about Zabuza's name-calling.

"Same to you. Is that by any chance the Vigna marina?" Haku asked politely, flashing a brilliant smile. Naruto turned her head towards Sakura when feeling the girl go rigid, pink hair floating slowly with the wave of a nod in her periphery.

Confused, Naruto slid her gaze sideways to see Sakura demurely dipping her head, nervously tucking a lock of hair behind her ear.

Did Sakura not like Haku? Was she like Kakashi, who was absolutely furious about her actions and refused to believe that maybe, just maybe, the two missing nin were good people? Naruto's fingers twitched anxiously at her side, and for a moment Naruto played with the idea of straight up intervening and singing praise to the mercenaries in front of her, though Zabuza's ode might be a little hard to adjust to a good light.

She didn't know what she would do if Sakura blew up and accused the two people in front of her, the two she had risked her life to save. Did anyone in her team believe in her at all?

However, Naruto choked on her saliva when Sakura's voice twittered, sweet with honey, "Aah, Inari-kun ate some bad fish, so I'm buying it to help with the nausea and dehydration…"

And was that a blush on her teammates face?

Nodding in understanding to the information that passed so far above Naruto's head, Haku reached out and grabbed the bag from the girl's hands, commenting, "Would you two like to company for your walk?"

Haku's warm chocolate eyes fixed on Naruto, who nodded dumbly as Sakura's face glowed with a slight blush visible even though she nodded vigorously. Another smile later, and Naruto watched on as Sakura followed her friend out the door like a lost puppy, an action eerily similar to those around Sasuke.

Life was so unfair, Naruto realized with a groan.

"So you play for the other team, then, do you?" Zabuza mocked, making sure to bend low so as not to knock his head on the doorway again. His words left Naruto, gob-smacked, in the doorway to be swung at and hit with the closing door.

The genin, however, hastily recovered and with a bloody nose and a crimson face that Zabuza could only liken to a tomato, burst from the shop shouting, "Wha-! No, ew, just… no!" Stuttering for a response—Kami, Naruto, you do _not_ feel that way about Sakura!—the girl eventually grumbled out, "I'm just thinking how unfair it is that Haku is the prettiest and he's a _guy_!"

When Naruto realized that her words were, in fact, more than true, she slumped even further in defeat.

Laughing rowdily when Haku's shoulders stiffened in front of them, Zabuza beckoned Naruto after him with a commanding wave.

Growling at the inane man's actions, Naruto had no choice but to follow, seeing as she had no idea how to get back to the house anyway.

Time passed as the four walk through the town, every single one of the villagers ogling them. And it wasn't just her and Sakura, Naruto noted, but also Haku and Zabuza who were getting looks of devotion, something the tall jounin easily ignored, though the dusting of pink to his face told Naruto otherwise. The two missing nin must have done something amazing to atone for attacking them. Haku had said that Zabuza was helping build the bridge, and with his brute strength alone the manual labor must have cut down construction time immensely…

"Would you stop staring already, gaki? It's disgusting me," Zabuza growled, stoically passing by a teen hyperventilating as if star struck while they passed by. Chomping down on a retort, Naruto flashed a smile and waved, the boy's eyes widening before he scampered away shouting out to his friends in excitement.

The genin's chest puffed out arrogantly at the teen's actions and she could help but think this was how her own village would one day treat her: like a hero. Not even Zabuza's insults couldn't affect her then!

Just before Naruto continued on her trek, she froze, he feet glued to the ground and her muscles unwilling to listen to her.

In front of her, flickering in and out of her vision, a group of monotonously grey-scaled children came flying as if skidding around a corner. In Naruto's mind, she reconciled the fact that in reality, the four kids just phases through a more than solid wall. At first they just ran and jumped in circles, three of them chasing after the one who appeared to be the shortest, throwing what must have been play shuriken.

The short one, his hair tied into a high pony tail, flipped around and battered all the wooden projectiles down and threw his head up in a laugh, the muffled sound drumming against Naruto's head. With dramatic movements, the boy whipped out an arm and six more kids jumped out of nowhere. All of them, like the once-again-laughing boy, had odd black dots scribbled onto random parts of their faces messily, presumably with some kind of paint.

Naruto noticed her breath was picking up in pace, screeching out of her lungs. They weren't real, no one else in the road could see them or even gave them any attention, the people of Wave glancing at her in awe as she just stared at nothing. At _hallucinations_.

Kami, her head was killing her.

Another dulled voice beat against her as one of the first children ran up to the group, holding his wrist and screeching out a weird noise. It didn't sound like words to Naruto, and she found that when watching the child's lips she only made out nonsensical syllables. However, before the fake attack could connect, the boy tripped and fell flat on his face, all the others laughing as he popped up from the ground pouting.

More words, more sounds unavailable to her, but suddenly everyone's heads whipped towards her, their gazes glazed over with adoration and worship. Naruto forced a step back, dragging her heel painfully against the ground. They were staring right at her, not through her or near her, but at her.

One of them smiled, Naruto couldn't even tell them apart anymore her mind was swimming and her brain just banged against her skull again and again and again. And it was all muddled and fuzzy, Naruto recognizing when the hallucination was pulling away and Naruto pushed it away just as eagerly.

"Naruto-nii! We were just playing ninja!"

Naruto clenched her eyes against the piercingly clear voice of the child. She had never heard sounds during her episodes before, but she wanted it to end. Now. Kami please now.

"Sounds fun! But you know, Nagato isn't really all that bad!"

That voice was older, somewhere off and out of her vision, but it yanked at her stomach and swirled the contents, nausea bubbling inside her. She was going to puke. Ah, the headache wasn't helping either at all.

"He's actually a good guy!"

Damn that voice, she hated that voice. It was unnatural. Happy and boisterous and carefree and just wrong for some reason and it made her want to just puke and pass out and Kami she was tired. It had been what, two days? Maybe now was a good time to take a nap, the boy's voice lulling her and beckoning her and she should have slept those past two days. Maybe she should have listened to Sakura when the girl said there'd be more repercussions from her injury than Naruto could see.

Then, one of the kids came charging at her, a swirl of shades of grey, one step after another bolting at her, one foot and the next foot advancing on her. But by the time he reached her frozen body, there was no impact, just a chill that zipped down her spine uncomfortably.

"It's even creepier when you stare at random children."

Naruto stumbled to the ground, the fuzzy grey overlapping her vision disintegrating into the blue of the sky and panorama of the Wave village. Another villager waved with a happy smile, carrying a basket of fish on their arm.

Naruto held back the vomit as she picked herself up, proud to not be shaking. Tentative arms reached up to massage at her aching temples, a staccato of bursting pain blossoming and wilting in her mind. Naruto bit her lips hard to focus herself, and it took her more than a few seconds to realize Zabuza was staring at her oddly, expecting some kind of outburst.

"He was older than me!" Naruto stuttered out angrily, "Besides, I wasn't staring!" She calmed her erratic heartbeat when Zabuza returned to his teasing glint in his eye and continued to walk forward, oblivious to the bile rising in Naruto's throat.

She heard them talk, they couldn't touch her, but they could talk. Sakura said they could be auditory… right? Naruto couldn't remember.

Pausing to watch as the girl in question stopped to help a crying child with a scraped knee, Naruto licked woefully dry lips before smiling. Sakura calmed her. She was familiar, and as long as she wasn't being ringed with that odd affection, being with Sakura made her feel like herself.

Naruto's grin widened into something akin to foxy recognizing the child's flinch and nervous nod of their head. Sakura was admonishing the poor thing, her jaw clenched angrily and frustration toiling away in her eyes.

At a high-pitched, "Yes, kunoichi-san!" Sakura's lips turned upward into a tender expression before shooing off the kid.

"Sure you don't have a crush?" the gravelly voiced man beside her teased. This time however, Naruto glanced casually at the man; her heart wasn't thumping wildly or her mind playing weird fantasies of a sweetly smiling Sakura. Instead, the Uzumaki was focusing on the weird notion that Sakura would look nice with short hair, ferociously tending to the wounded with a tenacity that could only be rivalled by Naruto's own. She definitely would become a great medic if she decided, Naruto confirmed in her mind.

Naruto shook off the vestiges of grey in her mind before it took over her senses.

Apparently Sakura heard their conversation because with a bright pink halo of hair, she was facing them with a smirk, "Naruto. Crush? Unless you're talking about her dear Iruka-sensei, the girl's sense for romance is equivalent to a stone's!"

"O-oi!" Naruto squeaked, her face burning in terrified embarrassment. Her heart thumped erratically and she quickly catalogued escape routes from any questions, just in case. Surely she wasn't that obvious, right?

"Zabuza-sama, Sakura-kun," Haku admonished genially before addressing Naruto, "We are here, Naruto-kun."

Cocking her head in confusion, Naruto looked past her companions and her eyes scrunched down in confusion. Somehow, while playing with her fantasies in her mind, Naruto had missed the hulking, almost finished, bridge in front of her. By why were they there?

Apparently she didn't have to ask as Haku took a step towards her.

"This bridge is where our dreams are tied together," Haku began solemnly, though not without immense warmth, "The place where we fought. Me, for my dreams. You, for your dreams. Both of us, for our precious people. It is where we became stronger."

The young teen's eyes flickered to Zabuza, who smiled cockily at his apprentice and crossed his arms in confidence, silently backing the words.

"Though I do not know why you went to the lengths that you did to help us, I thank you," Haku finished, bowing low with a curtain of hair blocking his face.

Flabbergasted, Naruto waved her hands frantically at the gesture feeling vaguely uncomfortable with it. Her eyes beseeched Sakura for aid, but the girl only continued to fidget to the side with an odd expression. Even Zabuza, who she turned to next, managed to bend at the waist for a small bow of appreciation of his own, though his movements were a lot more reluctant.

"Kami, stop! I just… I mean, I know we were enemies, but I liked you guys!" Naruto cried out, feeling way too awkward for comfort. "Sure, no brows over here was being a dick"—the glare Zabuza sent her after rigidly straightening due to the words told her that, yes, it was the no brows comment that ticked him off earlier—"but I knew a guy who took you in couldn't be all bad!"

Haku straightened and smiled, loosely wrapping his arms around her shoulders with a quick squeeze, and Naruto, still unrecovered from the thanks, could only mimic his actions numbly.

"That was all I wished to say." Haku muttered before stepping away, nodding to his master, "Zabuza-sama and I will be leaving now that we ascertained your health, Naruto-kun. Thank you for everything you've given me." And then the boy smiled at an angrily muttering Zabuza. Naruto blinked in a blush, attempting to wave off the awkward embarrassment racing through her body. She was so stunned that she didn't even get to say goodbye before Haku disappeared in a swathe of water, leaving her, Sakura, and an annoyed looking Zabuza.

Naruto blinked at that last person.

"Haku would maim me if I didn't say it, so thanks kid. But listen here, gaki: you're foolish, naïve, stupid, and possibly the most reckless moron I'll ever meet and will probably die due to your stupidity." Zabuza's ki remedied Naruto's desire to angrily retort, and the man continued without faltering. "However, I'll murder you myself if you get killed. I can't let my reputation get tarnished just because the idiot that beat me goes down for doing something moronic." A wide grin was now hidden beneath Zabuza's bandages, and for the first time Naruto saw exactly what her gut had been telling her when she went and saved him. He really was a good man.

"With this," he said with a more serious tone, "I'm no longer in your debt." With those last words, he handed a scroll to the confused Konoha genin and followed in Haku's suit, leaving the two female Team Seven members alone. One blushing madly and the other staring deadpan at the previously occupied space.

"You know what, Naruto," Sakura said, stepping up next to her orange clad teammate, "I totally agree with him."

_H_A_L_L_C_I_N_A_T_I_O_N_S_

"Have you ever thought of cutting your hair short?" Naruto asked as if choked, watching as Sakura's pink tresses swayed behind her, twisting in the breeze. It was only supposed to be during her dreams. Dreams. That thing in the village was simply sleep deprivation and a onetime thing. It had to be.

So why was she constantly seeing the Sakura in front of her with short hair? Short hair tied into a ponytail. Short hair looped into a bun. Short hair curled into waves. Short hair let loose, fluttering light butterfly kisses at her jawline.

Fuck these halluci- Hallusa… whatever they were!

"Have you ever thought of growing your hair long," Sakura snapped back with fire in her eyes, oblivious to the rising panic of the other girl. Luckily, that tone was exactly what Naruto needed as she blinked away the vision, returning Sakura's long locks.

That fire was usually only present when… "Sasuke-kun said he likes long hair!"

When Sasuke was involved. Despite her worries, Naruto couldn't help but roll her eyes at the girl's vehement declaration, walking through the doorway.

"Chasing after women is one of the three shinobi vices, Sakura," Naruto chided all-knowingly, kicking her shinobi sandals off to the side as Sakura hastily grabbed onto them. She slapped the soles together before setting them aside neatly with a huff, scowling in Naruto's direction.

"We are women, baka! Besides, Sasuke-kun is so manly how can he even be compared?" Sakura swooned, dropping several grocery bags off on the table, specifically plucking out some herbs. The little hearts Naruto imagined popping out of her teammate's eyes caused the redhead to shudder.

"Well, I assume the equivalent to us is just guys with pretty boy faces!" Naruto pouted, crossing her arms behind her head and leaning back.

Sakura scoffed again, walking into the kitchen and pouring water into a kettle before setting it to boil. She was obviously brushing Naruto's words off, angering the girl considerably.

"It's true!" Naruto roared, jumping up from the couch. Her face heat up with indignation and her thoughts flew around in her mind, pain spasming for a moment in annoyance. Grasping at her temple, Naruto yelled, "Jiraiya told me that gambling, alcohol, and pretty faces would be a shinobi's downfall!" Naruto really tried to make it not sound like a whine, honest, but the sudden headache wasn't necessarily helping.

A loud clang in the kitchen like the dropping of a pot made Naruto flinch, pulling lightly at a knotted strand in her crimson hair.

"Jiraiya, like the sannin Jiraiya-sama?" Sakura asked incredulously, popping her head out from the kitchen. Wide green eyes stared back with confusion before they hardened and Naruto could practically see the black aura of death surrounding the girl. "You are such a horrible liar!"

"I'm not lying! Why would I be lying?" Naruto snarked, feeling more and more annoyed at Sakura's disbelief. Seriously, the man was her godfather, it wasn't all that far of a stretch to assume that he would give her advice. Granted, she could have lived without all the brothels.

The sound of soft footsteps descending from the stairs had the two girl's attention for a moment, Sakura blushing lightly at her yelling while Naruto just seethed. She was honestly surprised that Tsunami or Inari hadn't come down yet to greet them. They weren't exactly being quiet.

However the form that appeared wasn't Inari or Tsunami, and neither was it Tazuna. Naruto stiffened when Kakashi's slouched form stopped at the bottom step, face doubly hidden by his mask and orange book. Naruto's heart fluttered nervously when the man's single eye looked her over. No, it passed right by her as if she weren't even there. The blankness in the gaze told her that perfectly.

Naruto felt the anger burn deep in her stomach at that.

Kakashi turned towards Sakura, sending the girl an eye smile and scratched his perpendicular white hair with a bandaged arm.

"What is Naruto lying about?" Kakashi questioned with a light tone. His bandaged arm was stuffed back in his pocket, away from Naruto's speculation, but the Uzumaki's gaze still scorched upon him heatedly.

"I'm not lying," Naruto snarled, but Kakashi stoically ignored her words.

Naruto switched her eyes nervously between her sensei and her teammate before crossing her eyes and settling with sending Naruto a cross gaze. "She's telling me that Jiraiya of the sannin told her about the shinobi vices," Sakura murmured, and immediately Kakashi's lone eye sharpened as his head whipped towards his smallest student.

It was the first time Naruto felt like he was actually seeing her since their fight, and the girl didn't know whether to be afraid or confused at what that meant. So she settled with what was most familiar: anger.

She bared her teeth at Kakashi, and the words ripped from her throat: "You don't believe me either, do you bastard?"

The masked jounin winced at her words, his bandaged arm tensed visibly and Sakura's nervous scrutiny was drawn to the movement. Her observant eyes followed the limb upward and across the slope of Kakashi's shoulders before meeting again with the man's sole eye. It was muddled with hurt and clouded into murky obsidian.

Sakura's brows furrowed in worry. Her sensei was a jounin, and extremely skilled one at that, and they had been his subordinates for months, but she had never once seen his lose his aloofness, not even in the heat of his battle against Zabuza. Even when the man was serious and sharp, there was a sort of relaxed vibe to him that screamed nothing about it bothered him, and if it did he'd just stab it with a kunai. No, this time he seemed genuinely hurt, and Sakura was very sure she didn't like the situation.

Of course, she took it upon herself to bring Naruto's anger back upon her and away from her sensei. Apparently, she did the same for Kakashi, because his restless arm relaxed and his eye lost all emotion aside from its stupid detached amusement. He was back to ignoring Naruto at her words, eye roaming the page in front of him from his perverted orange book:

"Baka, he hasn't been in the village since before we were born," she said slowly, crossing her arms and clenching her fists on her biceps. She let out an internal sigh of relief when Naruto gaze, not so angry any more and more curious than anything, was brought back to her.

Kakashi's lackadaisical voice piped, "She's right, Naruto, he hasn't set foot in the village since the Kyuubi attack."

And Sakura was glad when Naruto's anger didn't return. Instead, Naruto flinched. The pink haired girl narrowed her eyes in suspicion, but didn't say anything further.

Sakura quickly deduced that she'd need to have a talk with her teammate about hiding emotions, because suddenly Naruto's purple eyes widened disproportionately to her face and her mouth became slack-jawed. Obviously she had thought of something, or remembered, and Sakura took that as the girl's cue of realizing that she was obviously all wrong in her belief that she could lie not only to her—the top kunoichi of their class if not just because of her _book smarts_ and _intelligence_—but also their legendary jounin sensei who more than likely personally knew the sannin.

Honestly, Sakura thought depressed, it was amazing how Naruto made it through the academy sometimes with how she never thought through these things. Especially when none of the sannin even stepped foot into Konoha for over a decade. Sakura scoffed.

A sannin? Talking to a dead-last like her?

But then again… Sakura's green eyes followed the path past her sensei and up the stairs, resting on a closed door blocking the object of her affections from view. Naruto was strong, stubborn. Maybe not exactly skilled, and like Zabuza said, her teammate was foolish, but she saved Sasuke-kun and held by her beliefs in the heat of battle, no matter what anyone else thought. Naruto did what she thought was best, and if it was impossible she made it possible. Simple as that. And perhaps, maybe, there was a small chance that Sakura admired her for that.

If anything, she showed Sakura that being a kunoichi was no game and that they weren't there to sit around and look pretty and be smart. They were there to fight for their country and their team and their beliefs. Being sated with being protected would only get her team killed.

Sakura and Naruto's eyes met again, her own green pair hardened in thought and promise while Naruto's purple were a little lost and clouded. But then, within seconds of their staring match, they cleared, grounded again with a spark of petulance that made Sakura want to groan.

Muttering under her breath, Naruto sniped, "You didn't care what Sasuke thought about your hair when Haku was here."

Sakura bristled, but held down the blush of anger. "I- you- he!" she fumbled, going instead for an angry and pulsing vein in her head. And then there were times she just couldn't stand Naruto at all. "Cha! Nothing is wrong with thinking another boy is pretty, Naruto! Sasuke-kun would understand!"

"I would understand what?" asked a grumpy Sasuke, already past his door and down the stairs with his trademark Uchiha shirt and spiked hair.

"Sasuke-kun!"

"Teme!"

Sakura send a doleful glare at their redheaded teammate for the name, but relaxed a little when she noticed that the boy was smirking as if amused by it.

"Oh, did I forget to mention the third brat woke up?" Kakashi asked as if he had forgotten to mention that it was supposed to rain later and nobody brought their umbrellas. Sakura's full rage pinnacled to a point which found Kakashi's bandaged arm swirling three shuriken around his fingers, a huffing pink haired genin's arm still stretched out. The perverted giggle pealing from his mouth naught but a second later had the pinkette itching to reach into her pouch again, but the look on Sasuke's face stopped her.

"Oh Sasuke-kun, I knew you'd be ok!" she cried out to the disbelieving mumble of Naruto who had slumped back down on the couch. The pink-haired genin threw herself into Sasuke, wrapping her arms around his frigid frame before pulling back. Kakashi was impressed that the girl hadn't taken more advantage of the fact that Sasuke hadn't dodged, but simply awarded it to his recent lessons.

Mentally patting himself on the back, he figured he could make a fine kunoichi out of her yet.

"With all the cute genin up and about, I suppose we'll be leaving tomorrow, so pack up chibis!" he called cheerfully with his patented eye smile and slapping his book shut. He shooed the midgets off upstairs, Sakura dragging a green-faced Sasuke by the arm in an over-excited manner before noticing his third student hadn't moved from her spot on the couch.

Suddenly, Kakashi's face wanted to mimic Sasuke's and color itself green as well.

There was a deafening silence between him and Naruto, though the latter seemed blissfully unaware of the tension as her face was scrunched up in determination, a countenance akin to constipation Kakashi decided, and the jounin didn't have to think long to realize that Naruto was deep in thought.

If she had to focus that much, it had to have meant she was attempting to pluck thoughts into a cohesive unit inside that maelstrom of a brain of hers.

Kakashi contemplated just leaving, turning heel and disappearing for a good couple hours, but his mouth fought against his plan and just spewed out the words. He belatedly thought he needed to rework his control a bit.

"So you said you talked to Jiraiya?" There was no inflection to the tone, no allegation like Sakura or anything close to standoffish that might set the girl off again. Just pure, bland, detached, curiosity. No emotion, shinobi have no emotion.

A startled jump and Naruto was staring at him, confused for a moment before her eyes transmuted into an accusatory state. They were all too similar to the one Kakashi saw in the mirror at times, and he almost reveled in the fact that somebody else was finally directing their own at him. He deserved it, especially from Naruto. But at the same time, he was angry at her for not understanding his side of things, the shinobi side of things. There was a way of survival in their line of work and she wasn't listening to it; if she died because he couldn't convince her to just kill…

He had to bite back from returning her stare with an annoyed glare of his own, something he hadn't needed to do for years in ANBU. He definitely needed to build his control. Damn these kids were making him soft.

He forcibly melted the tension from his muscles and slumped against the wall. The epitome of not a care in the world, snuggling his nose deep into his smut again. Another barrier to keep him sane.

All he got from Naruto was a grunt in answer.

"Obito. Ever heard of him?"

There. It was said, delivered with cool precision that gave nothing away. Kakashi could feel the cool salve of his shinobi training blanketing his mind and body as he himself retreated into the dark recesses of his mind. This was an interrogation, nothing more. There was no attachment to the name or the girl in front of him. It was mission and there was an objective.

He was simply trying to figure out where she had heard his name. He wondered bitterly who could have told her, already concocting plans of castration and maiming. Nobody had the damn right. If they told her about Obito and his team he would never be able to look her in the eye again.

Naruto looked at Kakashi as if he had grown three heads. Kakashi quickly noted that there had been no tells; her eyes stayed in contact with his and there were no nervous twitches or ticks her could pick up on. Kakashi lazily blinked as if he weren't even paying attention.

"No? Should I have?" Naruto asked incredulously, look of constipated thought back on her face. "Kami, if you tell me he's one of those characters in those pervy books of yours!" she hollered out.

Kakashi's deadpan look shut Naruto up quick, the tables turned on the now spluttering hothead.

No tells, no nervous ticks, just fumbling, innocent Naruto. It was that last bit that reminded him not to reach down for a kunai and commence the next stage of persuasion.

There was a tense pause between the two before Kakashi nodded, Naruto releasing a breath she hadn't known she had been holding. And that's when she started thumbing the fringe of her shirt, catching Kakashi's attention.

As casually as she could, though there was sweat pouring down her brow and her neck very noticeably to the skilled shinobi, she placed a nondescript scroll on the table with a light tap. Then, nervously, she pulled at the collar of her tank top and bit her lip, obviously anxious, and her sweating became more prominent as her face twitched into brief and grotesque contortions in what Kakashi assumed were nerves, slightly distinct from her "I-am-thinking" face.

Naruto finally muttered out, after a long while of consideration, "Uh-uhm… no brows said to give this to you? And umm… I never actually talked to Jiraiya. Just read a quote over your shoulder from one of his books."

The way she worded the statements made them come out more like a question, but when she nodded her head towards the orange cover in his hands, Kakshi would have stumbled if her were a lesser man. Her face was alighting in a mad blush that encompassed her ears and went down her neck, grabbing greedily at her clavicles and pursuing under her collar before she scampered off upstairs yelling, "Teme!"

Oh Kami, the Hokage was going to kill him if he ever found out that Naruto had read porn thanks to Kakashi. Not that the man ever had to find out… yes, that's right. The Hokage didn't have to hear about this ever.

It didn't take Kakashi long to realize that he had memorized every line in his prized book collection due to his intellect and compulsory reading habits, and not once in any of the novels had Jiraiya ever written anything about the shinobi vices. Not once.

**So I'm just saying this now: Naruto, just because she is a girl, doesn't have any changed relations with other people (except a slight tweaking to fit her gender). As such, instead of wanting to date Sakura before this story began, she wanted to be like, her best friend (which explains why Naruto isn't super caustic when Sakura, out of everyone, tells her what to do). In a similar manner, this means Hinata doesn't have a crush on her, but rather great admiration. This also explains more of why I chose Iruka as Naruto's crush.**

**Also, PLEASE tell me if you think anyone is OOC (other than Sakura, unless its absolutely crazy, since she's supposed to be changed a little). I had a really hard time balancing a freaked out Naruto with a freaked out Kakashi and had to change who saw and did what a million times because it didn't seem right. lol please xD**

**Either way, thank you for putting up with my crappy chapter full of non-action TT^TT I'm trying to get to more excitement, I swear! hahaha**

**And by the way, as I said before, fotsvamp won the challenge (and asked for a fast update... which I promised last week to be...) by guessing Naruto's crush was Iruka right away because the man was 1) bullied when he was younger and overcame it like Sakura and 2) is highly intelligent like Sakura, something Naruto admires. life is short so am i also gets an honorable mention for figuring out that the hint was the bullying aspect of Sakura's past and then later guessing Iruka, Chouji was my second choice, but I don't see Naruto having feelings for him at that age where she's all showy and talkative and Chouji is always in the background. :)**

**thank you to those who reviewed and faved and followed *hearts* you are all awesome :) Please, feedback and criticism GREATLY adored. What did you think about the interactions, the hallucinations, the interactions WITH the hallucinations, the way Sakura has begun to think or how Kakashi is? What are you guys looking most forward to in the upcoming chapters? TELL ME PLEASE! :D I mean, reviews are my life. Even if you just spell out Pinocchio, because I am said "real boy" (i'm a girl, though, really) who lied to fotsvamp about my update and so my nose grew two inches... sad face. (though I made it extra long in return!) Heck, I'll also accept just for giggle your favorite "Holy _ batman!" reel :)**

**also, trying not to cry but... 50 reviews... it's a... it's a mile stone TT^TT I LOVE YOU ALL.**

**But! Question of the chapter! What do you think is in the scroll Zabuza gave Naruto? HINT*** He raided Gato's base before leaving :) Once again. don't believe this is cannon so let your imagination wild!**

**Thanks for all the love and all the wait! Sorry for my super long rants this chapter, I'm half dead/asleep and need to wake up in four hours! Wham-o! Thank you for reading :) Hope you enjoyed**

**Koby Out!**


	5. Lie

**So it's been a while, and I apologize for that. I've been really busy with tests and friends and family, but hey no one wants to hear excuses! Originally, this was only a part of this chapter (Which was to be titled ****_Jinchuuriki_****, but this was already almost 7k words long and not even close to where I wanted to end it), so I just ended it so you guys could at least read someeeething. I actually had most of this part done weeks ago and could have posted... so I'm sorry.**

**Important things in this chapter, yay! But you guys don't find out what's in the scroll yet (you guys have all given great guesses, but none of you even came close to what was in it!) Maybe I'll give y'all another hint after this chapter.**

**Enjoy it, I kinda don't know whether I like this chapter or not, so tell me your thoughts afterwards!**

***Don't Own Naruto***

_Lie:_

_Verb- to utter a falsity with the intention of deception; to speak an untruth knowingly; to convey a false impression_

_Noun- a falsehood, an untrue statement made with the deliberate intent to deceive, something with the intent to convey the wrong impression._

_Lies are told for several reasons, varying from malicious to kind. Sometimes lies are manipulations to trick a person into doing something they otherwise wouldn't have wanted to do, other times lies place blame on an innocent party, and lies can also be used to trick a person into walking to their death. These types of lies lay close to a shinobi's heart and are considered a valuable skillset for the job. It has often been said that lies and deceit are a shinobi's home, just like the shadows they run in._

_White lies, on the other hand, are told in hopes of sparing the receiver from negative feelings or consequences. Despite this, many white lies are told in selfishness and fear of another's reaction to the truth_

_A highly debated question:_

_Are lies of omission still considered lies?_

It had slipped past her lips, just a small quip that seemed so infallibly true to her at the time: "Jiraiya told me." Yet, the more they argued and fought, the more Naruto realized _she had no clue who Jiraiya was_.

Sannin? Naruto could vaguely remember possibly, maybe, _perhaps _hearing the title in class, but she had most likely been sleeping or planning her next great prank. She hadn't been dead last for nothing, after all.

And yet somehow her great big fat mouth decided it was a dandy idea to go spew the fact that she had talked to one of them. Physically. Exchange. Words.

So here she was, claiming to have received life advice from one of them and yet she had no clue who in Kami's name they were.

But the second Naruto wondered about the sannin, it throbbed within her, and three faces popped up in her mind.

One, a beautiful lady was blonde pigtails and a blue diamond on her head—which seemed awfully familiar—pulled a deep-seated love that burst through her chest, a soft caring tendril of remembrance as her brain slowly traced the lines of the woman's face but couldn't break through the haze that obscured most of it.

Two, the complete opposite of the woman. An actual fire raged through Naruto's veins as if it were instinct. Upon gazing at this… man? Woman? Naruto couldn't tell, but when her eyes met the sallow, purple-rimmed eyes of their pale countenance, she allowed the tearing growl to bubble from her throat. This was a person Naruto had no qualms in killing, she knew.

Then three, with a white mane of spiky hair and a headband reading oil, though the rest of his face was blurred, brought up feelings of adoration and pure depression, a deep twang in her gut that made her want to cry. She knew this one was Jiraiya and she knew he was a super pervert and he secretly had a crush on his teammate, but she also knew that she had never met this person before in her life.

Naruto groaned in pain, her mind swirling in confusion before she slammed her forehead against her knees. She left it there, forlornly, as she took a deep breath in and tried to think, put the pieces together. Who knew it was so damn hard?

Sakura had told her with Kakashi-sensei's confirmation that there was no possible way that she had met this man in her life, something Naruto herself realized was so perfectly true, and yet here his face resided in her memories.

For a couple of minutes, before being told off by them, Naruto was one hundred percent sure that she had spent time with this Jiraiya, pretty much lived with him and sought after him as a father figure of sorts. She had remembered eating ramen with him as he got drunk off sake, complaining of woman and spewing disgustingly raunchy scenarios for his perverted research.

She had remembered getting angry at him for stealing her wallet and running off to the brothels, once even trying to bring her with him, much to her embarrassment.

She had remembered the proud look he gave her when she accomplished something and the encouraging look when she failed. She'd never seen anything like those expressions in her life, even from the Hokage and Iruka, and she felt her heart swell with love with them.

And Naruto had even remembered his death, and it broke her heart. The clench in her gut and the stinging in her eyes on reflex when attempting to remember his face told her that much.

But then Sakura's words grounded her and Kakashi pulled her back up onto her feet. The more she looked back into her memories, the less these images brought emotion to her or made sense. They were dreams, illusions; a transparent film of misperception hazing her mind.

She didn't know Jiraiya, had never met him, had never heard of him, and yet she thought she had talked to him. It was madness. It was driving her to madness and her head into a pulsating mass of agony.

Then those words: "…hadn't stepped foot in Konoha since the Kyuubi attack."

And everything suddenly did made sense to her.

The Kyuubi. Of course it was the damn fox, how could she have missed it before? That bastard was fucking with her brain, surely trying to convince her to let him out. But not on her watch. Nobody messed with Uzumaki Naruto, believe it!

Unfortunately, her attempts at stemming the visions had been despairingly unsuccessful so far.

Another wave of vertigo slammed into her, causing Naruto to pull her knees closer to her chest and take a deep breath in. Nothing was more soothing to her than the damp nightly forest air. She took in another gulping breathe of the air and groaned. Kami, her head was killing her, and despite the fact that she was once again sleeping regularly—more like passing out really—black dots had a tendency to occlude her vision while nausea plagued her innards.

And with these pleasantries always came the flickering lights of visions and the tinkling voices of people she didn't know. Which is why she was now burying her eyes into her knees. Covering her ears did nothing for the sounds, though, so instead her fingers massaged her temples.

She was getting better at ignoring them. While Naruto couldn't do anything about the nausea and headaches, ignoring the ghostly visages like they weren't there was becoming something of a second nature to her. All she needed to do was focus on what was real: Sakura's voice, Kakashi's lazily slumped shoulders, Sasuke's grunts. That being said, it still freaked her out to walk through the damn things. Naruto felt as if she were violating the poor people, no matter how imaginary they were.

Naruto sighed in relief as the feelings and whispers and cries and laughs passed, opening her eyes to the curtain of red hair in front of her.

She threw out an impish smile. Uzumaki Naruto had beaten the stupid fox again. The genin swiped a clammy hand through her short hair, the sweat holding it back against her skull to keep it from her eyes.

That was the third episode that day. Naruto wasn't so dull to miss the fact that they were growing in frequency and clarity, sound now a usual component of her visions and sometimes even smell or taste joining in. It was like her senses were having a fucking rager in her mind while she was the poor roommate trying to sleep. She swore to herself that, when she got back home, she'd never be loud past ten ever again. And she'd apologize profusely to her neighbors for her past misconduct. Definitely.

Resting a cheek against her knee, Naruto followed the line of a tree trunk up to the canopies with one eye open. Rich green leaves blotched out the sky Naruto knew was speckled with stars. She missed the stars, the sight from atop the Hokage monument always giving her the prime viewing. When she was younger she liked to think that muddled up in the lights were the eyes of her parents, giving Kami hell up in heaven while watching over her.

One pound tromping around her mind in symmetry with her pulsing heart flashed a yellow and white blur in front of her eyes.

Naruto drew in a sharp breath, closing her eyes and just allowing her sense of smell and hearing to take stake of the area around her. Reality, Naruto thought, as the wet aroma of decaying leaves and rain and nature greeted her, her head quickly pushing the pain out.

The drought from earlier had broken halfway through their trek home, leaving the ground moist and the air deliciously damp. The forest animals were more lethargic in the weather, leaving most of the sounds of the forest to be languid bird songs or the occasional chirp of the bugs. This is what she longed for. The ocean and beaches were amazing and exciting, but nothing could truly beat the life among the trees.

_Crack!_

Naruto froze, thinking for the first second that it was her imagination, that blonde man that flickered in front of her. But when the headache and nausea didn't come the second second, the third second saw the girl scrambling forward and twisting all at once. She reached her hand down to her thigh only to realize she left her kunai pouch by her bedroll and cursed.

Trying to make up for the loss of composure and time, Naruto attempted to crawl backwards to the tents and warn the others when a voice stopped her.

"You'd so be dead by now, dobe," Sasuke remarked, walking out of the bushes with a smug smirk on his face. The young Uchciha mimicked the throwing of a kunai for effect.

Naruto's eyes twitched and she flung to her feet. "Sh-shut up teme!" she yelled, pointing at him in anger. A groan from the tent behind the girl made her flush and whisper-yell, "Besides, you were the one who stepped on a _branch_!"

Sasuke's smirk transformed into a scowl. "Hn," he grumbled, stepping further into the clearing they were using as a makeshift camp. A soft snore from Sakura had Naruto glancing over to the side even as Sasuke approached. Naruto continued to warily watch the tent containing the girl before switching to the tent with her sensei. Bastard totally had his own while the three of them had to share one. It was indecent, two girls and a guy in the same tent that is. Sakura probably threw a party because of it, but personally Naruto wanted to be as far from Sasuke and his festering man pain. It really stunk something foul.

The soft sound of crackling drew her attention again to Sasuke, his toes rummaging through the cold ashes of the fire. He was obviously debating on whether or not he should start covering it up so they wouldn't have to the next morning.

Naruto watched his face, calm yet tense. Sasuke was never relaxed, always struggling with the light furrowing of his brow with something on his mind. Something unpleasant, Naruto came to believe, seeing that his obsidian eyes were always hard and angry, ready to ignite with just the smallest of sparks. Naruto never saw what the other girls saw in him, sure he was pretty, but he was hard and rigid and… she couldn't really put her finger on it. Broken? Lost?

…Empty?

Just looking at him always brought Naruto back to her darkest times, the ones she had spent her entire life attempting to escape.

Naruto wasn't sure, but those qualities that made him attractive to others made him relatable to her. And she couldn't help but want to help him and befriend him. Maybe she could help him get over whatever was killing him inside and live a normal, happy life like her and Sakura and Kakashi.

Four days since he woke up and four days since they left Wave and the little house behind, and it didn't take Sasuke even one of them to notice the changes within their team. Most of the time, the changes were subtle: Kakashi's odd seriousness, Sakura's confidence, Naruto's nervous ticks and frequent naps. Others were more obvious. While Sakura still fawned over the boy, she didn't insult Naruto nearly as much and Kakashi, when divvying out chores and training, was a lot harsher. Of course, Naruto's silence was what really changed.

Sasuke spent most of the time silently appraising the new dynamics and adjusting unwillingly to the fact that he wasn't the unchallenged alpha after Kakashi anymore. That is if adjusting consisted of a plethora of scowls accompanied by a myriad or angry grunts which probably meant something threatening and sulky. It was a miracle the boy hadn't blown up in a fit of arrogance yet.

Apparently she was looking at Sasuke too intently because the boy's head snapped towards her. His lips didn't deepen into a frown and his jaw didn't tense, but his brows lowered just enough for Naruto to understand.

She grinned a little, a small thing that acted more like a sigh of resignation than an expression of happiness.

"I know I know, I shouldn't be awake," Naruto replied flippantly, arching backwards before allowing gravity to yank her to the ground, spread eagle. She closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet air again, savoring it. She was within Konoha's borders with her team. She was safe.

"Hn," Sasuke rumbled again, the sound almost lost to Naruto's ears.

One purple eye was exposed to the night again, pupil dilating to take in the image of Sasuke, staring at her with a blank look. His hands were in his pockets and the corner of his lip twitched downwards. The expression caused the Uzumaki to snort in disbelief.

The stuck up, arrogant, annoying, Uchiha Sasuke was worried about her.

Well, that was a nice surprise.

Sasuke's eye twitched when Naruto began to chuckle uncontrollably, a warmth spreading through her at that revelation. Could they be called friends now? That's what friends did, right? Worry about each other? She always worried about him in her own way, but he never gave a shit about her before.

Naruto bit her lip to hold back the giggles, opening her mouth to say something when suddenly she felt the urge to puke.

Naruto swung her body upwards in a violent motion and both her eyes snapped to Sasuke's when his irises suddenly bled red and black, forming into a bastardized version of a six pointed star. The red ran down the eye and soon blood was following the curve of Sasuke's cheek like a waterfall.

The delicate drip of crimson fluid dropped and dissipated upon reaching his shirt.

Oh Kami, she wanted to puke, she wanted to cry, she wanted to just scream and beat the living shit out of the fox sealed in her stomach for giving her so much grief. But when Sasuke's thin, aristocratic eyebrow lifted in question again, the stupid bastard apparently incapable of some kami damned _actual words for conversation_, Naruto grit her teeth and clamped it all down.

She swallowed the miniscule bit of bile that clawed up her throat and forced herself to look confidently into Sasuke's deranged eyes.

Was that a form of the Sharingan?

She locked her fingers behind her neck and smiled foxily, feeling her facial muscles strain at the action, rip with the absolute falsity of the gesture. "Go to sleep; my shift should be starting anyway," Naruto chirped quietly, flinching when the headache started. She was seriously going to kill that stupid fox.

"Hn." This time the grunt sounded affronted, and Naruto's best guess at what the translation could be was: "Don't tell me what to do, dobe." However, she was only glad that Sasuke was distracted now instead of watching her with those calculating eyes.

Those bleeding, creepy, black and red calculating eyes with a manic stare that hated the world and everyone in it.

That's it, she was so going to be sick.

"Well, I'm gonna go check the perimeter!" Naruto squeaked, ignoring the dizzying vertigo as she hopped to her feet and tried not to seem too eager to leave the camp. Oh Kami, oh Kami, she could feel her heart speeding into an erratic panic as all her logic shut down to give way to adrenaline's fight-or-flight control, instinct now plucking at her limbs like a puppeteer.

"Naruto," Sasuke said coolly, and the girl froze. Her shoulders convulsed once as she held back her vomit, and Naruto chanced a look backwards. Those eyes were staring back at her with cold fury and another rivulet of blood wept from his eye. The gaze exuded killing intent, an inescapable darkness that consumed her and wrapped her snuggly like a frozen blanket of fog. This time, the illusion felt all too real.

Naruto spun and kept walking, her pace faster than before, but Sasuke took her earlier attention as permission to continue speaking.

"We'll get that hunter nin next time. You and me, with my Sharingan and your… stubbornness. We will find them pay them back for that shoulder of yours."

She didn't know if it was the effect of the hallucination or just Sasuke himself, but Sasuke's voice sounded dead almost, lost to reason and uncaring with a hue of crazy. It would have sent shivers down Naruto's back if her muscles weren't as rigid as steel. She never thought she would ever miss the whiny bit of brooding in Sasuke's voice before that moment.

Naruto nodded before jumping up into the branches, sprinting across a couple trees and through a decent amount of branches, uncaring about the trail she left. Eventually, when she wasn't exactly far enough but unable to hold it all back, she curled into a ball and heaved, tears springing from her eyes at the acrid taste. She had to get her mind off of the feeling and the images. She had to concentrate on what was real.

Sasuke knew about her injury. She had healed before he woke up. He shouldn't know about her injury. Was it Sakura who told him? Most likely. But Sasuke had thought Haku gave her it. Did Sakura not tell him about how she'd received t? Probably, seeing as Sasuke thought Naruto wanted revenge for it…

Naruto groaned as a particularly harsh throb of pain wheedled into her head, her body swaying and almost losing balance before she forced chakra to her feet to stick. Unfortunately, she pushed too much out and instead of sticking, the chakra blew her straight off the branch and towards the ground. The redhead tumbled painfully down and slammed into the forest floor.

Naruto moaned again curling inwards and tucking her head in. Breath in and breath out, focus.

Unless, Kakashi never told Sakura what happened so she couldn't tell Sasuke the truth even if she wanted to. Because Kakashi never told her. Kakashi never told her.

Laying on the ground for several minutes, Naruto hadn't noticed that she had started shivering until she stopped, her swimming head returning to clarity. The redhead sat there for a good few minutes, allowing the slow resumption of the forest sounds surround her and wrap her head in a blanket. She didn't know whether she was unable or unwilling to move, but her team was sleeping behind her and she had a job to do eventually, craziness aside.

Naruto pried her eyes open to stare at brown and decaying leaves covered in puke. Lovely.

She really needed to find a way to beat the shit out of the fox so it'd leave her alone.

Licking cracked lips and wincing at the acrid taste of vomit, Naruto pushed herself into a sitting position and swiped off the plants debris from her shoulders meticulously.

"Graceful fall," Kakashi commented, raising his eye up from his book to meet Naruto's suddenly wide ones before dropping back down. She couldn't understand whether today was sneak up on Uzumaki Naruto day or she just sucked at sensing people. Then again, she was awesome, so of course it had to have been the first.

The man was leaning on a tree and exuding a certain amount of stillness, as if he were part of the nature surrounding them. Even when he flipped a page in the book, even when he exhaled in time with the movement, the slight shift in air and sound melded into the forest cacophony. Naruto watched warily as her sensei's single eye trailed patterns on the page, as if reading the words, but she knew it was a ruse. The damn pervert wasn't giggling.

"Not feeling well?" the jounin queried airily when he realized Naruto wasn't planning on answering. Naruto's eyes narrowed on the orange cover. That color was way too cool to be hiding that nasty smut. Besides, what kind of sensei read porn in front of his impressionable students!

A horrible one, that's who, thought a glum Naruto.

"Go away, sensei," Naruto scoffed, discretely covering the vomitus next to her. There was nothing she could do about the smell, unfortunately, except hope that the man's mask occluded his sense of smell just enough.

Kakashi wasn't perturbed by his student's rudeness in the least. He just did as he always did: read his book. He let Naruto's words bounce around the forest for a few seconds, accompanied by the slick sound of a turning page, before asking, "Having trouble sleeping?"

Naruto stubbornly stayed silent even as she picked herself from the ground, pain from the fall already dissipating into nothingness. Answering meant getting caught up in her sensei's pace, and if that happened then she was done for. Instead, Naruto obstinately interested herself again with scowling at the darkened green leaves above her, their soft rustling something of a soothing sound. She'd just ignore the bastard until he got bored of her and left.

If only it were that easy.

"Is it the Kyuubi?"

Naruto's body betrayed her by spasming at the words, and a quick glance in Kakashi's direction told her that the jounin had seen the movement, his slate eye boring into her intently even as a nimble hand turned another page. The genin ground her teeth harshly.

The staring match between them lasted for a few seconds, Kakashi blatantly staring her down even as her face turned a brilliant red shade. Naruto knew silence meant confirmation, knew that with every small moment that passed Kakashi became more sure with his instinct, but she didn't have it in her to deny it.

He was her sensei, surely he wouldn't judge and discriminate against her because the fox was attempting to weaken her, right? Maybe he could help even. He was a strong shinobi, a jounin since young, student of the yondaime who sealed the demon into her, and she was getting worn down by all the paranoia and battles with her own mind.

A harsh exhale from her nose broke her free from her thoughts, and the fact that his stare was cool and calculating registered in her mind.

Perhaps, though, he was her sensei _because_ he was a strong shinobi, a jounin since young, student of the yondaime who sealed the demon into her because she was a risk and he was risk management. Kakashi had been nothing but wary around her for the past week or so, and her instinct for primal survival reared its head at her.

Perhaps she should be more worried about physical threats, at the moment, instead of those within her mind. Naruto gulped, shifting unsteadily between her two feet as she felt her heart tear with her thoughts. If she couldn't trust her team, who could she trust? She couldn't even trust herself, at the moment.

Patting herself down one last time, Naruto glared at the man heatedly for a moment before growling in an attempt to divert the conversation, "You didn't tell them the truth." The redhead watched Kakashi's lone eye transmute from confusion to understanding in less than three seconds, but his gaze betrayed nothing else. Not guilt or annoyance or even sadness.

It was just infuriatingly blank.

With a light grunt, Naruto stomped past her sensei, watching as he sighed melodramatically at her purposefully noisy retreat. Not that she cared in the slightest.

The red haired girl made it a point to pass precariously close to him, inches away from bumping her shoulder into his stomach. If she was only a little bit taller, she would have socked him right in the face, knocking him to the ground.

It was the light whisper of the wind, but Naruto thought she heard Kakashi's voice interwoven within it, saying something as she passed by.

"What?" Naruto snapped, not stopping her path to their encampment. The masked jounin spared a half-lidded glance before pushing off the tree he was leaning on, following just a few steps behind his student.

"Hm?" he hummed in question nonchalantly, long legs crunching neatly in the damp debris. Only, his crunching of leaves made no noise in comparison to her raucous steps. For some reason that fact pissed Naruto off more.

Naruto prickled at the obviously detached tone and showed her distaste by baring her teeth, not that Kakashi could see. The two stopped where Naruto had just been speaking to Sasuke not fifteen minutes before, and the girl knew that her sensei was fine with letting the silence fester this time: he already had her going and knew she wasn't going to let it go.

She was still angry at him. She didn't regret her decisions, she was proud of them, and so were the villagers and Zabuza and Haku.

But not Kakashi. Not her own sensei. He didn't _trust_ her. All Naruto wanted was him to acknowledge her hard work, like he had with Sasuke's skill and Sakura's intellect. She didn't want to be useless again or weak again or a detriment to the team!

She didn't want to be seen as the demon about to pounce any minute.

Naruto gulped down her quickening heartbeat and desperation and scratched at the back of her hand absently. She wanted him to acknowledge all the good she had done, but instead Kakashi condemned it, was even lying to the team about it, and was suspicious of her. He wouldn't even let _them_ acknowledge what she had done!

Her voice was strong and angry when they came from her mouth: "Why haven't you told them?"

"Why don't you tell them?" Kakashi countered, his voice still smooth and thoughtless. But Kakashi never was truly thoughtless, he couldn't be with his reputation and skill.

"You're the sensei!" Naruto half hollered, half whispered, barely remembering her place. She glanced clandestinely at the tent sheltering the remaining two of their team, blissfully unaware of the tension building in their clearing. They wouldn't be witness to Naruto's shaking—or was that trembling?—body as the tears built up in her eyes. Nor would they witness the carefully neutral Kakashi, ever the character of infuriating-incarnate as he slowly unwound Naruto.

"Maa, I suppose I am."

Naruto's fists clenched at those words.

She beat Haku and then jumped in front of Kakashi's attack to save the shinobi. She stopped Kakashi from killing both missing nin, their enemies. She convinced the two to turn on Gato and not only allow the completion of the bridge, but also free the country from the evil monger's influence.

She flipped two enemies to assets and saved a nation all at once. What was so wrong with that?!

She was proud of what she'd done, knowing the alternative was a lot sadder and bleak, and she would make the same decision again and again if she had the chance. Even with the chidori.

Her neck twisted to glare into Kakashi's lone eye, but Naruto quickly found her eyes straying away not a moment afterwards. She grit her teeth together and ground them so strongly that Naruto was surprised it wasn't audible. The noise definitely echoed in the recesses of her head.

"Whatever, I'll just tell the teme tomorrow!" Naruto growled, crossing her arms and jutting a hip. She flickered her glare to his hands as Kakashi snapped his book shut. When he first started walking, Naruto thought that he was walking towards her so she tensed, but it soon became clear that he was heading to his tent to sleep.

No way was she going to just let him ignore this!

Before she could yell and holler, waking up the rest of the team and probably the entire forest, Kakashi intervened, "As team leader, I don't think it's wise to say anything." His comment was offhanded, like he was brushing her off, and his tone light.

"You just don't want anyone to know that you stabbed me! You haven't told anyone what happened, coward!" Naruto screeched, starting loud enough for Kakashi to wince before she hastily controlled her volume into something more acceptable for night. However, that didn't mean she wasn't still seething, trembling with the strain to not attack her commanding officer. But then again, maybe the Hokage would understand? "Punched in the face for being a monumental dick" sounded like a pretty legitimate reason to her right now.

Kakashi paused, scratching his chin in a pose of innocent thought before said pensively, "Can you imagine what they would think if they found out that you got that injury saving Haku? After Sasuke was supposedly killed by him? He'd feel betrayed by the first person he trusts since…"

Kakashi faltered here before returning to his mumbles, "Sasuke… he finally sees you as a rival and teammate thanks to that battle. When he heard from Sakura about your injuries, he vowed retribution on the two. Telling him now would ruin the team." Kakashi's voice was then solemn, his eye hard and trained on something far away, neither on his book nor Naruto.

For a second there, Naruto wanted to believe in him. But then the man did that ridiculous eye smile and said cheerfully, "That being said, feel free to say something! I haven't ordered your silence."

Kakashi took those final steps to the tent lackadaisically, pulling back the tent flap and stepping in with a lazy wave goodnight. The tall man had to crouch so as not to disturb the tent's integrity. A muffled voice fluttered past the flap, reaching Naruto's ears.

"Oh and Naruto? Don't forget to secure the perimeter!"

Naruto's voice rumbled deep in her chest. Excuses. She _would_ tell her team what truly happened and then Kakashi would have to acknowledge the fact that she did save the day. That she made a difference.

"Of course I won't forget the perimeter!" she bellowed loudly, sprinting off worriedly when she heard a growl sounding suspiciously like Sakura emanating from their tent.

_L_I_E _

The next morning came hard and fast, birds waking up barely before her team did. While generally hating the last shift of watch, Naruto was glad she was assigned it that night. She wouldn't have been able to sleep. She wouldn't have wanted to, either.

Naruto nibbled on her lip as Sakura was the first to peep her head from the tent, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. The pink haired girl blinked wearily at the birthing light before stepping out and stretching. She looked haggard, as if sleep had eluded her all night, and Naruto was too terrified to ask why on the off chance it was because of her.

Naruto stared at the tent until her other teammate emerged, appearing as if he hadn't just woken up and hadn't been showerless for the past five days. She continued to stare as he stretched as well before looking up. Their eyes met, obsidian and amethyst, and Naruto held his gaze secretly glad that he didn't have his sharingan activated.

Sasuke scowled in her direction before palming a kunai, twisting it around his finger, and stepping to the side to practice throws. The boy had perfect form.

_"Feel free to say something. I haven't ordered your silence."_

Tell him she would, then.

Her eyes slid to the still occupied tent, knowing that the man wouldn't come out for another hour or so. It was part of his lazy and late ploy, Naruto assumed with irritation prickling at her skin. He spouted all this shit about teamwork then goes off and lies to them like it was normal. It was _not_ normal, and Naruto would fix that.

Turning back to the pit of charcoal in front of her she shifted the remains with a stray stick she had acquired. She went about carelessly sifting the black debris into the ground before covering it up with leaves.

From the corner of her eyes, Naruto could tell Sakura's jaw was locked in annoyance at the slipshod job and would be heading over to yell and fix her mistake in seconds, something she'd honestly rather avoid, but couldn't find the heart to escape at the moment.

Naruto's gaze returned the only male genin on their team again, still focused but scowling deeper due to her lazy ministrations. He swept through a particularly angry throw, kunai digging halfway into the trunk with a solid thump.

Tell him she would.

Naruto practically sprung towards the boy. His own black gaze wavered from staring at the tree to her, but before she could say anything, Sasuke spoke up.

"Want to spar?"

In Naruto's peripherals, she could see Sakura's eyes widen in disbelief from where she was dumping ashes in a small littering of holes she had dug up. Naruto was positive that her own eyes reflected the action perfectly, plus maybe a slack-jawed, idiotic expression if Sasuke's face was anything to go by.

Smug bastard.

"What?" Naruto squeaked, immediately going rigid.

He had never asked Naruto for a spar, almost always telling Kakashi that she was "so bad he could only get worse against her" when they were paired during training. Something that always pissed Naruto off and had her demanding retribution or claiming the Uchiha was just terrified of losing to her awesomeness. That one usually got him to agree, with a chronic tic under his eye.

But never had he prompted her for one, though the challenging glint in his eyes told Naruto she hadn't heard wrong.

The redhead's mouth opened and closed multiple times, not knowing what words she wanted to say. Sasuke sneered annoyed at her silence, another kunai in his hand that was thrown perfectly, thumping heavily into the tree. Naruto just noticed the knives were in a straight vertical line. Not even a centimeter off, probably, with how dementedly perfectionist he was.

"What is it, dobe? Finally realizing how you'll never have a chance?"

Naruto's head snapped back as words still failed her. Not even her usual temper at the insult flew through her. No, she had something to tell Sasuke. Sakura, too. This was the right time, the perfect time, and they should know what had happened.

But Sasuke… Sasuke had finally thought of her as someone worthy to train with, maybe even as a rival. She had gained his respect thanks to what he thought had happened on the bridge. Would telling him the truth really… would it really take away Sasuke's newfound comradery?

Naruto's eyes were drawn to Kakashi's tent. The man still hadn't stirred.

"Sasuke-kun, if you and Naruto want to spar, can I-"

Sakura didn't get anywhere, her words cut off by Sasuke's cool voice. Naruto vaguely registered that the girl looked crest-fallen, delicate pink lips turning downwards. But Naruto couldn't focus on her.

"We need to train if you don't want to be useless next time, too," the boy snarked, impatient for her answer, but a confident smirk had found its way to his face. It was challenging, almost warm even, and for once Sasuke didn't seem so uptight. The Uchiha almost appeared relaxed, even.

Naruto felt the words in her throat, repeated them in her mind, and knew that she should say them: Sasuke, Haku and Zabuza are my friends and our allies; my shoulder injury was all my fault and not theirs.

So why, if she was so certain, were the words coming out of her throat different than the ones she had promised to let out?

"I'll beat you so bad, you'll be bowing down at my feet!"

Naruto smiled and cracked her knuckles, lowering into a shoddy stance that suddenly felt awkward for her, but it was the only one she knew. Her smile widened when Sasuke lowered into his own, sharp eyes roaming her posture intently before they both shot off.

The action and her words just seemed so right, no matter how wrong she knew it was. Perhaps not telling her teammates would be best for them, she thought as Sasuke's eager face came closer and closer, muscles taught and ready for a strike. For once his eyes didn't ooze superiority and Naruto found herself basking in its departure.

It finally felt like she sort of belonged.

"Maa maa, so energetic in the morning," Kakashi stated, nose nestled deep into his book already despite holding back a struggling Naruto. Sasuke, on the other hand, was allowed to stop on his own, skidding to a halt a few feet in front of his sensei with a glower on his face.

Naruto's heart pounded harshly against her chest as her face heated up in guilt and embarrassment, like the child caught with their hand in the cookie jar. The girl attempted to meet her sensei's eye, but with him lifting her up from her collar behind her, it appeared impossible.

Kakashi, for what it was worth, made no motion towards commenting on it, instead happily chirping, "I take it if we have this much energy, we can get to Konoha by ten, then?" He still refused to let go of his redheaded student despite her lack of struggle. Sasuke's eyes narrowed at Kakashi's words, but he remained silent just as Naruto.

Instead it was Sakura, standing to the side of the clearing, who piped up confused and worried, "But sensei, with our speed it would take at least five hours to get back, let alone four."

Naruto could practically feel the shit-eating grin underneath Kakashi's mask, and if Sakura's darkening expression had anything to say, the other girl noticed it quite clearly. However Kakashi didn't falter or even twitch under the genin's glare.

The pervert obviously believed they wouldn't be able to do it, just like Sakura. But she'd show him: Naruto Uzumaki was the future Hokage, after all.

Ripping herself out of Kakashi's grasp, Naruto yelled cockily, "I can get there in four hours easy! No, three hours!"

She sent a purposefully haughty look back at Sasuke and brushed invisible dust off her shoulder.

"Impossible for a dobe like you," Sasuke muttered, dropping his fighting stance to go and take down the tents.

Naruto's back went ramrod straight and her chin lifted in defiance. "Why you-!"

"NARUTO! Sasuke-kun's right. Getting back in three hours isn't possible!" Sakura harped, stomping over to help her crush with the temporary living quarters. Naruto's sharp ears picked up dark mutterings under the pinkette's breath, suddenly reminding her of how much a morning person Sakura was. Which was basically not at all.

Unluckily for Naruto, she missed the smug glint in Kakashi's single eye, like a cat who had just caught dinner and was about to play with it before ending its suffering.

"I don't know, I think Naruto's on to something and I like the enthusiasm!"

The genin in the clearing froze except for the minute twitch in Sakura's shoulder. Naruto gulped nervously, watching her teammate ever so slowly turn to face them as if she were in slow motion. The empty look on her face didn't help at all.

"Let's make it three hours, then! A minute later and I guess we'll just have to take that may more D ranks to get faster," Kakashi said, clapping in punctuation.

Sakura stared horrified at her sensei.

"Oh good, the campfire and tents are all gone. Guess we'll start… now?" And Kakashi disappeared.

Sasuke immediately took off, bag full of supplies resting steady on his back while leaves and debris flung behind him, disturbed from their rest by his feet. The detritus danced in his wake, wind playing coyly with it until it sunk back to the ground, covering the boy's steps in the softened dirt.

Naruto blinked confused for a moment, before yelping and grabbing her own bag left on the ground. She was determined not to lose to the teme again, but she didn't get far before Sakura's voice was trolling around in her ears: "Why would you say something like that!"

But before the Uzumaki child could answer, Sakura, too, had taken off, leaving Naruto alone in the clearing. Sighing in resignation, Naruto whined, "Why can't I ever shut up!"

The only thing left in her wake was flying dirt and swaying leaves.

**So there you have it! Chapter 5, soooo exciting... not. hahaha What did you all think? :) Some Sasuke action for once, so welcome back my vengence-obsessed friend!**

**This chapter actually shows the first bit of inner turmoil within Naruto and will be important later. This chapter's question is: How do you think Sakura and Sasuke will each act if they find out the truth? I'm curious to see what you guys think, so there's not really a winner... though I guess whoever has the most interesting and new answer will win! :)**

**Anyway, I know I don't deserve it because how flaky I've been, but please review! Even if all you want to say is Eggplant, a review goes a long way! :)**

**EDIT: just added some stuff that i think makes this better... added like 2k words... wow... lol. A new question just to see if you guys are paying attention! Can you name 3 reasons why this chapter is called lie? :)**

**Also, I'd like everyone to know I don't condone Kakashi's reasoning. I don't agree with it, but he himself errs and is a little... offput by everything (and he admits it himself he's being cowardly). That being said, Naruto goes along because she just wants to _Belong_ so bad... *sigh* poor people. honesty is a good policy.**

**Koby Out!**


	6. Jinchuuriki

**SOrry guys, this has been a long time coming and it isn't even an exciting chapter... I apologize for that. One reviewer pointed out that my story really needs to either 1) speed up to 2) update faster and I agree. Except its been very hard for me to write with college, research, work, and family issues happening. Despite this, I will do my best to update faster because I really can't write a faster story and feel comfortable with what I've done. Seeing as I agree with this review and someone even said that... I apologize deeply to you all, I'm horrible TT^TT**

**Either way, y'all have KakashisGirl33 and Sfrbcry to thank for this chapter being :) they helped quite a bit with my writer's block!**

**With that said: Enjoy!**

***Don't Own Naruto***

_Jinchuuriki:_

_Literal translation-power of the human sacrifice._

_The first jinchuuriki was Uzumaki Mito of the nine-tails._

_A Jinchuuriki is the host and jailer of the bijuu, making the maximum number of them nine. During the creation of the five hidden shinobi villages, the first Hokage used the power of his Mokuton to ensnare the rampaging tailed beasts and divvy them out to the other major villages to balance power. _

_Due to the beings contained within them, these people are characterized often by an exceptionally large amount of chakra as well as special abilities given unto them by their corresponding bijuu. However, with this power comes great social stigma, and the jinchuuriki are often heralded as either monsters or weapons, rarely being treated with kindness or respect, and it is this fact, along with the influence of the demons, that often drives the host into insanity._

_According to legend, all nine beasts originated from one malevolent being and are doomed to one day join again and be whole. It is said that, when this occurs, the gift of chakra will be rescinded by the gods and the world will end._

They arrived at the gates of Konoha five hours later, panting and sweating and almost on the verge of collapse. Well, all except Kakashi who was merrily stuffing his nose into the binding of his book and giggling perversely. The sound did nothing to aid in reducing Sakura's current anger, and while she couldn't get to her sensei from where she was perched on Naruto's back, the pink haired girl could easily pinch her teammate hard on the arm.

"Ow! Sakura-chan, what was that for?" Naruto whined, hefting the slightly taller girl on her back higher up. The blonde absolutely refused to acknowledge the slight trembling and numbness of her arms, half because she was afraid of what would happen when implying Sakura was heavy and the other half because it suggested she herself was weak. Naruto wasn't much of a fan of either option, really.

"_That_," Sakura began with a prim yet exhausted voice, "is for goading Kakashi-sensei, baka!" The pinkette had only lifted her head to speak those words, her forehead soon after slamming down on Naruto's shoulder. That apparently had been the last straw and Naruto went tumbling down to the ground in a Sakura-Naruto heap of tangled limbs and bruised torsos.

Both squawked in pathetic protest as their sensei watched on in pained humor, carelessly flipping the page of his book. Sakura screeched in pain when one of Naruto's hands tore at Sakura's pink hair in a fumbling attempt to climb up.

"Naruto!"

"Sakura-chan, I'm so sor- oomph!" Naruto yelped as Sakura's own hand clawed onto her black tank—Naruto woefully lamented the loss of her jumpsuit jacket and she suspected Kakashi had something to do with the case—and yanked her down with a battle cry. Naruto's knees gave out and, as she fell, a bony elbow jabbed sharply just above Sakura's belly button and the air once again left the girl.

Sasuke, proudly standing off to the side with his hands braced against his knees, scoffed at their battle only to stagger and almost topple down himself. Naruto growled from the people-heap, swiping an irritated look across him before barking in surprise as Sakura attempted to push her off again.

"You'd figure she'd _thank_ me for carrying her all the way back," Naruto whined to herself as a knee smooshed her whiskered face. Of course she had ended up carrying Sakura, on the edge of chakra exhaustion and passing out, rather than Sasuke what with her ungodly stamina, but after half an hour of falling out of trees with her teammate on her back, Naruto had started tiring. It wasn't until another hour after that they arrived where they were now.

"I wouldn't have needed to be carried if we didn't have to be back in _three hours_!" Sakura screeched in response, massaging her cramped calves with a wince, muttering obscenities under her breath and cursing her lack of stamina.

From behind the binding of his book, Kakashi eyed his three genin with thought.

They had started off running relatively strong, eventually learning to stay together as a cohesive unit when Sakura mentioned that they were only as fast as their slowest member; which, ironically and unsurprisingly, was her. Then again, Kakashi already knew that they had to work on that.

After a couple of flashes of Kakashi jumping through the trees and maybe one or two comments here or there, the three got the hint and took to the towering plants themselves. Though, if he were honest, with Naruto's chakra control and Sakura's reserves, it might have been better to just run on the ground. But hey, you win some, you lose some, right?

His eyes brought attention to Sasuke, panting heavily with all notion of pride gone in favor of the sweet, sweet air. The boy was completely oblivious to Kakashi's scrutiny, even as the single slate eye flickered intensely between the Uchiha's own.

Sasuke had awakened his sharingan during the mission, something his old sensei used to say would be an event calling for pride and congratulations, but with Kakashi's knowledge of how those eyes held sway in the ninja political sphere, the Hatake couldn't find it in himself to be elated or happy for the boy. If anything, he would be feeling dread.

The masked jounin's finger tips brushed apprehensively at his kunai pouch before he busied the fingers with turning a page in his book, flipping his worries and theories away with the movement to be discussed later with the Hokage.

Switching his focus instead on the pinkette who was grumbling and unhappily still squashed under an orange blob. Only her right arm, neck, head, and a curiously rebellious knee poked out from under his third genin. Kakashi covered up his fond chuckle with another perverted chortle at his reading preference. No need to let them catch on to him, yet.

Naruto, huffing on the ground, refused to meet his eyes, not that it surprised him in the least. Even though it appeared that she took his advice from the previous evening, the girl was stubborn to a fault and he assumed that she was probably still angry with him for putting her in that position. Not that he could actually blame her for that, but it was best for the team. They final starting working together, accepting each other. It had nothing to do with the image of his sensei's daughter, and his student, skewered on his arm.

Standing casually and nonchalantly staring at his genin, Kakashi calmed his racing heart.

Naruto seemed like the epitome of innocence and honesty, no matter how brutal or blunt that honesty was. Lying and deception simply weren't in her nature.

Or were they?

Kakashi recalled the brief flashes of utter...weirdness around the girl since the battle on the bridge, a weirdness that could only be translated into suspicion in his mind. Starting with the Obito—he almost flinched, instead clutching heavily onto his book that he might have imprinted fingerprints on the precious pages—and then with her knowledge of the shuunshin, Naruto was slipping. It was a comment here and there sometimes, like the thing with Jiraiya-sama, that she either just shouldn't know and _couldn't _know, and Kakashi wasn't a believer in coincidence.

But then he'd always catch her blanking out and flinching with what he assumed was a headache, panic in her eyes. Naruto would clasp at her stomach, her _seal_, with a pained expression and when he'd ask it was always oh so apparent that she just couldn't lie to him, her tells way too obvious. Honestly, how could one be a shinobi if every time they were questioned, they either laughed so forcefully they began to cough or sweat through two layers of clothing while biting their lip and refusing to make eye contact. He'd seen _bunnies_ more capable of lies.

No, lying and deception didn't come easy to Uzumakis, Kakashi figured, slowly turning the surname over in his mind as the rusted connection between Naruto and her mother once again lit in his synapses. It made him want to disappear to the shadows, run, maybe hit something and hit it _hard_, remembering the boisterously happy face of Kushina. A woman he long ago attempted to bury and now she was reappearing as his student with how she couldn't utter a single non-truth without burning up a bright red.

But on the other hand, Minato-sensei… Kakashi didn't want to think about it, couldn't think about it. If he did, he wasn't completely sure he could bring himself back.

Kakashi didn't realize he had been staring at the redhead continuously and probably creepily for a full five minutes and that the girl had caught on. At this point Naruto was staring right back, wide-eyed and curious. When the jounin blinked, she flinched and Kakashi had to stifle a groan when his overactive mind tried to decipher whether it was an act or genuine.

It seemed real but…

Normally he would ask subtly and slowly pry the information out of the person, but with his own anger at her actions on bridge and his inability to look at Naruto without seeing the raucous visage of her mother or the striking blue stare of her father juxtaposed over her purple.

His frustration and guilt accompanying their memory intertwined intimately with his still lingering ire with Naruto made him evaluate and reevaluate and then re-reevaluate those evaluations. His usually sharp mind and observations were clouded, and he couldn't necessarily fix his problem the traditional way. He was fairly certain that interrogation of one's genin wasn't well looked upon.

Grinding and annoying pain split between his ears as he thought, and not for the first time he wondered if Asuma had been right in thinking he was too paranoid for his own good. A break would definitely be a welcomed opportunity if Kakashi even knew what to do with it.

Slipping from his thoughts, Kakashi gained the three genins' attention easily enough with a deceptively cheerful hum, even if it was accompanied by three adorable glares, each attempting to be murderous in their own right. Surprisingly enough, it was actually Sakura who came closest to the achievement.

"Well," Kakashi began happily, "a deal is a deal, chibis! I'm going to go report to the Hokage now, so any preference on D-ranks?" The man's devious smile widened when Sasuke's arms spasmed at his words and the boy's eyes grew darker. "I bet there'll be a couple gardening missions, or possibly a dog walking one, and if we're really lucky, I'm sure by now Tora will have-"

Sakura's collected voice cut Kakashi off with a punctuated huff. Ever the diplomatic one, she was. "Sensei," she began, crawling ever so slowly out from under a still sprawled Naruto, "I just don't see how D-ranks will make us faster."

Kakashi picked his head up and blinked with innocent realization gleaming in his eyes, before saying slowly, "Huh. You know what? You're right, it doesn't make much sense does it?"

Sasuke's low and intense growl had him almost chortling with mirth. Instead, he fell back upon his classic eye smile as he hummed in the pretense of thought. By the time Naruto had finally gained enough wits to stand up right, Kakashi quipped, "Well, until I figure this all out, I'm going to go see the Hokage. You… you go do genin things I suppose and we'll meet up tomorrow like usual. Spend times with your friends and family; we'll be spending most of our time together from here on out!"

With those words, his gaze changed from focusing on Sasuke to latching on to a dazed Naruto, purple eyes glinting cerulean as they were focused wayward to somewhere Kakashi couldn't figure out. The jounin's eyes narrowed unperceptively as he watched the girl's muscles jump under her skin and her fingers twitch without her control. Slowly and carefully, his focus lowered down to her stomach, more specifically her seal. Suddenly, Naruto's open mouth snapped shut and her muscles contracted stiffly, Kakashi finding his body mirroring the action.

And then her eyes narrowed, shining violet once more, and her body went back into its sadly unprepared stance.

He wrapped up his flinch seamlessly into another perverted giggle when Naruto's gruff yell came: "Genin things? Aren't genin things supposed to be training, you stupid scarecrow!?"

With a labored exhale, Kakashi began his lazy slouch towards his home, gates closed and patrolled by his fellow shinobi to keep threats out of the village. He only wished that it were only the threats outside those walls they had to worry about most.

_J_I_N_C_H_U_U_R_I_K_I_

The next day came slower than Naruto had expected, and she would love to blame her unusual morning lethargy on that fact. The girl, however, knew that her exhaustion was most likely stemming from her lack of sleep, which in turn stemmed from the gratuitous amount of nightmares and visions since returning home.

At first she had been excited; the gates looming before her and her team were possibly the most welcomed sight she could imagine after her attempts at running through the trees—if it weren't for her increased healing factor, Naruto was sure that her arms and legs would have been stained purple from bruises, along with a couple spots here and there on her back from the amount of times she fell while carrying Sakura. Still, even while grinning and sprinting towards the Konoha walls, a sight that should have reminded her that entrusted within were going to be images and sights that she knew for a fact were real, Naruto couldn't help but compare the arches to those she had seen in the illusionary ruined city, quietly aging them in her mind to match that dilapidated yet regal silhouette.

Perhaps there was a connection with that ghost town and her hallucinations?

Honestly, things only got worse from there, Naruto supposed as she was still adjusting to an ever present, throbbing headache grating against her temples and burning to escape like a lion enraged within its cage. Which was also why, despite the curiosity and slight disappointment, the Uzumaki was generally happy to note that Sakura hadn't arrived yet even though Naruto herself was twenty minutes late to their assigned time. Only Sasuke lounged against one of the three wooden spokes that characterized the third training ground that Team Seven had unofficially claimed as theirs, which meant no loud and high-pitched attempts by the girl to gain the boy's attention.

Really, Naruto was beginning to truly learn to appreciate the little things in life. Like the not too bright sunlight streaming down, or the soft and soothing scent of grass, or the early morning silence.

"Dobe, where's Sakura?"

Until it's interrupted, that is.

Naruto visibly winced at Sasuke's words and groaned, slamming herself against the fresh grass on the ground to cradle her head in her arms.

"Why of all days does the teme want to talk today," Naruto snapped as she attempted to block out how her teammate's voice kept coming, despite the fact his mouth was no longer moving. She scrunched her eyes shut tighter and forcibly punched herself in the stomach. It didn't do anything helpful, but Naruto liked to think the fox could feel it.

Sasuke bristled at the comment and mumbled under his breath, but thankfully remained silent. The sun slowly crept from behind the trees and raised itself higher and higher as the training ground's silence permeated the air unobstructed. Naruto spent the next hour or so drumming a spastic thumb against her thigh and gritting her teeth every time a damned bird decided it was a lovely day to sing. It wasn't important at all to mention that every couple minutes or so some new ninja with big glasses dragged itself across her version. It was even less important to note that he had scales and these creepy eyes she felt like she'd seen before. Not at all.

It wasn't real. It couldn't be real, none of it. Only the sun on her skin and bird songs in her ears. Those were real. They had to be… right?

Honestly, it was hard for her to tell anymore. She just didn't know. The worlds weren't separated into greyscale and color and the sounds just felt so right and natural and-!

The nail of her thumb bit deeply into her leg until she was positive it had started bleeding.

Naruto sighed in release, her mind heaving with strain.

"You know, dobe, if you keep twitching like that someone is going to think you're on drugs," Sasuke's voice echoed around her again, causing her to hiss and press harder into her thigh.

A peak from under her lashes revealed Sasuke's countenance to Naruto, his own eyebrows drawn low over his brow and lips pursed. The redhead was on the verge of growling out obscenities to him when she noticed a flash of… was that worry in his eyes? Her mouth opened slightly in silent question and complete confusion. Naruto also couldn't help the giddiness the fluttered like butterflies in her chest at his concern in spite of herself.

Sasuke shifted uncomfortably under the uncharacteristically quiet and serious look from his teammate, eyes darting around the field in paranoia. He had the faintest inkling to activate his sharingan to see if this was some kind of weird, horribly woven genjutsu when Naruto shook her head and spoke up.

"Just not feeling all that great," Naruto sighed out, with another clench of the jaw and closing of the eyes. She took a deep, agonizing breath in before releasing it shakily and repeating the action. This pain was surely the culmination of whatever happened at Nami no Kuni, and all Naruto could hope for was that the stupid fox would grow bored of his games and leave her alone. She fisted her hands and readied herself to smack at her gut again, if only to make her feel better.

"Headache?"

Naruto jumped when the voice originated somewhere closer than the posts, and her widened eyes quickly latched onto Sasuke's obsidian ones, staring at her unflinchingly as he approached. Naruto wondered briefly when the boy had gotten so silent before figuring it was more likely the voices ringing in her ears that masked the steps.

"More like one bitch of a migraine, but…" Naruto's words died out into tired laughter, roughly rubbing her forefingers against her temple and pressing into them. The actions only garnered a stabbing pain and wince from her, however, and Naruto's hands hastily dropped to her sides. She fought back the whimper.

"You know, you're doing that wrong," Sasuke said snidely, though his voice was much quieter than it was previously. Even if Naruto was thankful for that, the suspicious leer she offered Sasuke didn't change as he sat down in front of her, one arm leaning against his leg.

"You don't know everything, teme," Naruto spat, immediately regretting the vicious turn of her neck in an attempt to stare the boy down. Her answer, initially, was an irritated sneer that pulled Sasuke's usually beautiful face into something ugly as his eyes hardened to flint. For some reason, it caused Naruto's pain to worsen as she just tried to focus on the wonderful, puffy and wispy and happy clouds pass by in the sky. So much more peaceful than dealing with the arrogant jerk in front of her at the moment, no matter the fact that they were now friends. She almost smiled.

"I know more than you, idiot."

And the smile only disappeared. However, the growl in Naruto's throat wilted when her hands were ripped from her sides and placed onto her forehead. Violently blushing—_I just _know _I look like some kind of tomato right now!_—Naruto stared wide-eyed at the scowling Uchiha in front of her, holding her hands in his, and he gruffly muttered, "You won't be able to train with a headache like this. Now tell me where it hurts."

Naruto was sure that if she wasn't frozen to the spot, she would have slapped Sasuke's hand away and called him a teme like usual. However, his hands were… her hands were… Sasuke-!

Stuttering, Naruto squeaked out, "At the b-base of my neck." It took a harsh and annoyed glare to get her to continue by yelping, "As well as my jaw and temples!" Naruto could only cringe at how high her usually low voice was scaling, embarrassed by the nervous teetering edge in it. As it were, it was miracle that she wasn't foaming at the mouth of having a seizure.

Was this how friends acted? For some reason, Naruto felt as if this was all wrong and that Sasuke should never touch her like this and it was just weird and awkward and she should probably start yelling at Sasuke and ask if he were gay or something, her femininity aside.

But before she could open her big fat mouth and shout, Sasuke sighed in enervation. He sighed like it was the most time-wasting task in the world—which it probably was to Sasuke—and the he moved her hands under her unruly mop of hair and to the base of her neck, tangling their fingers in the tiny tresses there. Only, Sasuke maneuvered their fingers gently, so as not to pull at them, and used his own fingers to press Naruto's down lightly and direct them into a slow, methodic, circle before retracting himself and sitting back on his heels.

It might have been soothing if Sasuke wasn't watching her angrily. As it was, Naruto's heart was working overtime with stress—or was that horror?—and pumping her blood so fast she was surprised it wasn't gushing out of her ears, or nose, or mouth, or-!

"Try using some lavender oil, or making tea with either ginger, peppermint, basil, or cinnamon. They all work decently well," Sasuke said nonchalantly taking out a kunai to sharpen.

Naruto quickly snapped her mouth shut and painstakingly ignored the pain that shot upwards towards her eyes, which watered slightly with the jolt.

Sasuke must have thought Naruto was crying because his eyes darkened and his scowl grew deeper. "Get over it. If you're weak you're useless to me, Naruto," he ground out. With a particularly harsh flick of the wrist with the sharpening stone, Sasuke purposefully focused all his attention on his weapon.

Naruto searched his pale face for even a hint of the red blush that spilled all over her own, but found he was completely normal outside of the deep scowl. Rolling her eyes, Naruto moved her hands up to her jaw and scoffed.

"I suppose this is how you show your love, duck-butt? Tea is so _girly_; why not try flowers next time," Naruto quipped with a toothy grin and an attempt to calm the raging blush, fingers rubbing soothing circles.

Another sharp screech of sharpening stone against throwing knife split through the air as Sasuke held it up to his eyes, scrutinizing the sharp blade before going through the motions to throw it. A small bead of sweat dropped down Naruto's forehead as the tip cut through the air close enough to where the wind rustled her hair.

Naruto grinned widely at the challenge, pushing aside her pain in favor of a "friendly" spar when she was interrupted.

"Well, you two seem to be getting along well enough," a cool voice came. Brushing aside a few askance branches, Sakura practically skulked her way towards them, a curious look upon her face. Her nose scrunched up as she eyed the kunai critically before scoffing.

"Down boy," Sakura sniped with a vexed grunt, smacking Sasuke's hand down. The wide eyed disbelief splayed across the Uchiha's face and the horrified expression on Sakura practically froze the air around them.

"Sasuke-kun, I am so sorry! I didn't mean- I mean-! I'm just really tired from-!" Sakura's frantic screeching almost had Naruto cracking up, but instead the Uzumaki groaned in pain. This time Naruto's fingers moved slowly to her temples and she bit her lip.

This surely couldn't be real: a hallucination definitely.

"You're late," Naruto ground out rather than continue thinking with paranoia, drawing Sakura away from her superfluous and shrill apologies. She was late by almost two hours, even.

With a sweep of her eyes, Sakura locked on to Naruto's ministrations. A calculating glint alit her green eyes as her fingers moved upward to twist a rose colored forelock. It was only then that Naruto realized Sakura's long pink hair was tied in a high ponytail, her tresses falling in a thin stream down to her shoulder. Not only that, but the girl was already covered in sweat and she was wearing new, red gloves. Hanging off one arm was a plastic bag full of what looked like text books, possibly two inches wide if Naruto's deductions were correct.

With a ghost of a sigh, Sakura said slowly, "Try eating some apples or taking magnesium supplements. That should help."

An owlish blink from the redhead later, and Sakura continued on with a pulsing vein in her forehead. "For the headache, baka. And I'm not late unless Kakashi gets here before me. Sasuke-kun, I'm sorry you had to be stuck with the baka for so long," she coaxed out of her throat, swooning. Yanking one last time at her bangs, the girl pushed between Sasuke and Naruto before wriggling down and smiling sweetly at the boy. She scooched a tad closer to him and fluttered her lashes before plopping the bag on her arm down. Pulling out a large book—about one and three-quarter inches, Naruto noted smugly—Sakura opened it to an indistinguishable page before beginning to read silently, subtly leaning closer to her crush with a blush.

And so a few seconds passed: Sasuke's mouth opening and closing in a totally uncool and not-Uchiha-esque manner that would have Naruto rolling on the ground with laughter tears streaming down her cheeks if her head wasn't so against any kind of stimulus, so instead she remained perfectly still as Sakura herself ignored her currently undignified crush in favor of her book. This was the scene that Kakashi arrived to in a puff of smoke. It was so… not Team Seven that he openly stared in wonder.

"First you're late, and then you waste more time by creeping on us like a pedophile. I'm a little worried for your mental state, sensei," Sakura jeered with a sharply sweet smile. Snapping her book shut, the girl tightened her headband and stood up. Naruto sucked on her teeth at the words, eyes switching between the too happy Sakura and her lazy sensei. Naruto supposed a week and a half training alone with the eccentric man while she and Sasuke were on bed rest frayed a little much of Sakura's patience.

Kakashi slowly drew himself out of his mystified trance to ease back into a dignified slouch. "Eh, I met a pretty girl so naturally I had to stop and dance. Just now I was imagining her beautiful face," Kakashi placated, digging around his kunai pouch to pull out his copy of Icha Icha where he hid his disappointment at the lack of amusing reactions from the three. Ignoring the hidden glare within Sakura's grin, the masked jounin threw out a scroll towards his genin chirping, "Mission!" Only when Naruto missed the catch and yelped as the thing smacked her in the head did he look away from the pages.

Before Kakashi could ask, Naruto growled out, "Headache," and continued her personal massage, Sasuke taking the chance to grab ahold of the scroll. Kakashi almost sweat-dropped when the obvious animosity rolled off the Uzumaki and thanked his lucky stars that the girl wouldn't have time for pranks for the next few weeks.

"She probably got it from all of the falling yesterday," Sasuke remarked, already flicking the scroll open to read its contents. A frown was already blooming on his face by the time Naruto leapt up and pointed an accusing finger towards him.

"Hey! Didn't see _you_ carrying Sakura on _your_ back!" she screeched before groaning and falling down onto her back. Naruto gently nuzzled her cheek into the soft, cool grass before sighing in content. Maybe she was going about this all wrong. All she had to do was rub her nose in dirt and breath in the fresh air and her headache went from thousands of kunai to the skull to maybe just a couples hundred shuriken.

"You've got a good point, Sasuke," Kakashi hummed in thought. Smacking a fist into his open palm as if reaching an enlightening solution, Kakashi's eye curved into a little crescent as he cheered, "Ok, Naruto, after we're done with this mission, while I work with the other two, you're going to keep working on the tree exercise until you're proficient!"

Oh, he was definitely glad that Naruto wasn't going to be pranking anytime soon.

"What!?" the Uzumaki whined, though this time it was more subdued and she remained on the ground, only one purple eye slit open for a glare. "But Kakashi-sensei, why does the teme get to learn some new badass ninja stuff while I'm just mimicking a squirrel all day?" Naruto thread a hand through her red hair and finally relinquished her crusade to massage away her hallucinations. The actions obviously weren't working if she could still see that kabuki, make up dude with a cat hood smirking down at her from beside Kakashi. Naruto threw her arm over her eyes in what she knew would be a futile attempt to escape.

She fought to control her breath.

"A squirrel is very becoming of you, dobe," Sasuke muttered distractedly, chucking the scroll down to the ground with a roar before Sakura could lean over and read it. The girl fidgeted warily, glancing anxiously between her crush and the discarded assignment. Her hand was hesitant when reaching for it, but she flinched away from it when Sasuke, with purposeful, angry steps, stormed in front of Kakashi and crossed his arms.

"No," Sasuke hissed, and Naruto could have sworn his eyes flickered red. What could have been in that scroll to make him so mad? _He _would at least be learning jutsu. Was the D-rank that horrifying? They wouldn't be… they couldn't be… babysitting _academy_ students were they? The Hokage so wouldn't do that to her!

Lamenting her horrible day—_screaming_ children, brats who can't listen and stop moving—Naruto could vaguely hear Kakashi cheerily say, "Ah, but Sasuke-kun, the place is quite dirty and-"

That was exactly what she needed for her headache, so of course it would be today of all days that she'd get assigned the academy mission. Naruto wasn't even sure if she could handle Konohamaru, and she loved that kid!

"I said no. I did not approve of this, Hatake. There is _no way I will allow this_." The bite in that sentence made Naruto wince, and she was almost positive Sakura next to her mimicked her actions just as violently.

"A young boy living all alone isn't very healthy," Kakashi admonished on without hesitation or fear, just the man's usual, cheery and annoying voice. Naruto didn't think she'd ever want something to make her aching head worse, but when Kakashi's consistently calm voice soothed her pain, she almost wished it made her worse.

"Sasuke-kun, what are you talking about?" Sakura's nervous twitter earned her Sasuke's evil eyes, literally. Three tomoe in total, two in one eye and one in the other, spun furiously in crimson irises and Sakura froze. Her pale hands clenched so tight that Naruto could practically hear the leather of her gloves squeaking.

Naruto was on the verge of giving Sasuke a piece of her mind for scaring Sakura when Kakashi easily pulled the boy away from his other genin by his collar, a low growl emanating from his chest like he was an animal. Turning his back to Sasuke, Kakashi addressed Sakura: "We're talking about, Sakura-chan, your new D-rank mission!" Kakashi sang.

Naruto watched warily as Sasuke glowered at the back of their jounin's head, her curiosity piquing.

"We're going to tidy up the Uchiha district. We'll be living and training there indefinitely!"

_J_I_N_C_H_U_U_R_I_K_I_

Kakashi scratched a phantom itch at the nape of his neck, distractedly humming mid-sentence as the memories flickered into his mind.

"Ah, I take it that Sasuke-kun wasn't all that pleased with the arrangement?"

Blinking for a moment as the present caught up to him, Kakashi chuckled endearingly and slouched back against the wall, turning his head to look out the window. If it weren't for all the paperwork and politics and panicking ninja, the Hokage's office would be a relaxing place to read Icha Icha all day with this view. The moon still hung midway up the sky as the sun beat down happily on the passing villagers. The district right below them bustled with civilians the size of ants from the height Kakashi was at while blurred lines zipped hastily from rooftop to rooftop. If he listened hard enough, Kakashi knew he'd be hearing the shouts of youth and blossoming talent of hardworking genin bounding through Konoha.

As it were, the elite jounin was in the middle of a meeting with his leader who deserved his attention, their serious topic sucking out all the joy of the scenery. He wondered if the Hokage ever got the chance to enjoy it for himself.

"There was a reason why I sent a clone, Hokage-sama. I just wish they didn't transfer pain as well as they do memories sometimes," Kakashi said, thinking back to the sensation of a sharp kunai point breaking the skin of his neck. Maybe, Kakashi figured, he should talk to Sasuke a little more seriously about his issues with authority. Or his love for pointy things.

The Hokage snickered a little himself before taking a puff of his pipe, blowing out sweet smelling smoke that tickled Kakashi's nose. It smelt like something fine, most likely from the Land of Honey, to the south. If he had to guess, by the spicy and cool aroma shifting from the Hokage's mouth, the Hatake would say it was perique tobacco.

Fine indeed.

Rubbing carefully at his sensitive nose, Kakashi asked as politely as he could, "Are you sure it is wise, though, putting us all in the Uchiha district?" To be honest, Kakashi was surprised that the Hokage had wanted him to be a jounin sensei, and now the old man wanted him to live with the little rascals? Be their role model on missions as well as at home? They were all a little messed up in their own way, and he really didn't want to make it worse. Kami knew that he was quite more than a little messed up himself, and yet the man refused to listen to any reasoning as to why he wasn't fit for this. Especially not right now when he was slipping.

The jounin almost sneezed when the heady smoke wrapped around him again, fresh puff already billowing from the leader's mouth as he sighed.

With a thumb and forefinger rubbing at the wrinkles in his forehead, Sarutobi's voice came out like a withering tree: groaning with age and the weight of numerous leaves supported on his branches. Accompanied by the clack of the Hokage hat on the wooden desk, Sarutobi creaked, "With the weakening of the seal and his interest in Sasuke"—the Hokage held a hand up when a deep rumble purred dangerously from Kakashi's chest, smiling subtly at the man's possessiveness—"it'd be best to keep those two under surveillance. And you _are_ the best suited for the job." The older shinobi's kindly brown eyes sparkled a little with mischief underneath the somberness.

Kakashi's gaze narrowed at the not-so-hidden look before pushing himself off the wall to approach the desk. Scrutinizing the tall piles of paperwork mosaicked on the surface, Kakashi's eyes stopped on an open scroll with black symbols swirling and surging across the surface, the rolling characters a very distinct Kiri style. A gloved finger tapped the parchment in thought and then a deep exhale.

Kakashi backed away to a respectable distance, inquiring "Can we trust Momochi's info, though?"

The jounin masterfully hid the edge in his voice when saying that name, though it was hard when all he could see was a pale faced Naruto, blood coursing down her body due to an injury he caused, protecting _that_ man. Kakashi slumped his back upon seeing the slight quirk of the other man's lips, regaining his aloof posture. Kakashi's voice gave nothing away when he added, "He's a nuke-nin, after all."

A chuckle from the Hokage informed the masked man that his detached façade was seen through, something Kakashi figured Sarutobi Hiruzen was the only man alive who could do so with such accuracy.

"From what you tell me, he was quite taken with Naruto and I'm inclined to trust his information. Especially when he sends it with something so… convincing," Sarutobi muttered, standing up and grabbing a sheathed tanto leaning against his chair. The matte black leather dulled in the natural light as the robed leader grasped the equally dark handle, pulling out the blade. It was finely forged and completely nondescript except for the fact that the tanto had no tip.

"The tsuka was made in Konoha, Kakashi, I would recognize the binding anywhere," the old man mentioned offhandedly, "A tipless tanto found in Gato's base of operations, wielded by a man with a seal tattooed on his tongue."

The words were stated as if they were supposed to hold a tone of breathy disbelief, like such a thing could never and would never happen, but the resignation in the Hokage's tone gave away how much he had been expecting such a thing. The man expertly sheathed the weapon and placed it gently on his desk. There was a moment of still silence after that, as the Hokage's eyes glazed over in consternation as he stared at the weapon.

A wizened finger caressed the sheath before being drawn back to the neck of his pipe.

The muscle in Kakashi's arm jumped as, once again, the Konoha leader took a deep drag. Zabuza, sword master that he was, could easily identify the wrapping on the blade and connect it to their village and he had sent the head as proof to the tattoo; it was giving Naruto the evidence of a Konoha traitor instead of leveraging it that bothered Kakashi.

The distrust had to have shown on his face, because Sarutobi's words harshly bit into the air, "Whether you like the man or not, we can't be taking any chances, and that means we need to keep an eye on Uchiha Sasuke. I've already dispatched ANBU to the places Zabuza's Intel implicated as Gato's bases."

Kakashi's frown deepened and his hand twitched to hold his Icha Icha book. While he wasn't fond of Zabuza, the deceased tycoon who made a living off terrorizing people would always have a particular hatred assigned to him in Kakashi's mind. Sure, all in all the jounin had seen worse people, fought against eviler enemies, and even worked for shadier clients and he couldn't help but not feel a damn. Shinobi training did that to a person.

But Gato was the reason why Sakura was no longer innocent and Naruto was having issues with the demon and Sasuke was in bed rest for almost a week.

Tearing himself away from his line of thought, Kakashi itched at his hidden eye and said, "Naruto and Sasuke together is volatile enough, but why Sakura as well? She has parents, a family, they'll surely complain about the arrangements."

"Let me take care of the complaints, Kakashi," Sarutobi said with a concealed smile. He slowly lowered himself back into his chair in order to shuffle through a few papers. An eye glinting from underneath his wispy and greyed lashes, the Hokage murmured, "They are a team, they should stay together."

Kakashi held back a flinch at those words, not even a twitch giving him away. His and Naruto's argument echoed like a phantom in his mind and he wondered for the millionth time why he'd been chosen as a jounin sensei when he was so disgustingly misaligned for the role. He didn't deserve it. They didn't deserve it.

With a one shoulder shrug, Kakashi tapped a finger on his kunai pouch. Underneath the fabric hid his precious porn, but he couldn't even muster a thought let alone a fantasy of the actions within the covers. As it were, his mind was completely taken over by the thought of him living with the three children for an undisclosed amount of time when he himself never had much of a childhood.

What does one do with kids, anyway? Is he supposed to buy them candy? Wasn't this situation a little… morally questionable?

Kakashi groaned and ran a hand through his hair. He understood the necessity of watching them, he really did, and he wanted them to be as safe as possible, but he wasn't sure he was the best option. However, one look at his leader and Kakashi knew better than to continue trying to get out of this.

"Fine, I'll do it, but I still think I'd be more effective taking that bastard down," Kakashi growled, muscles straining with tension. He eyed the shadows of the office with a calm head, knowing that the Hokage's office was sealed in silence even though his paranoia screamed at him.

The Hokage cleared his throat, sensing the darkness in Kakashi's mind, before murmuring, "You're their sensei, Kakashi, and they'll need you."

Kakashi's lips thinned into a straight line underneath his mask before expelling all signs of stress from his body. With a silly eye crinkle and the flick of the wrist, Icha Icha was drawn up to his nose. "He's going to be even angrier when I tell him he's not allowed to use the sharingan," Kakashi hummed.

"Well then Kakashi, I suggest sending another clone."

A slow blink and another rub of the neck had Kakashi saying, "My other clone just died, actually, and he was far from happy."

The hearty chuckle that rumbled from the elder man's chest was all Kakashi needed to assume he was dismissed. With a slow movement, Kakashi pivoted and began to step towards the door and out of the office. As his gloved palm rested on the oak door, the Hokage's voice tumbled around the room again.

"Oh and Kakashi, keep an eye particularly on Naruto. If the fox is weakening the seal, we'll have to…"

"I understand, Hokage-sama," Kakashi droned.

"The council isn't willing to take the chance, Kakashi," the Hokage muttered. Kakashi's ears picked up a certain degree of sadness in the voice, but an overwhelming saturation of hard finality drowned it out. "The second it appears that the Kyuubi is influencing her, we have to take action. Losing the village's jinchuuriki would be a major blow to security. Suna has proved that well enough."

Kakashi thought about it, long and hard. The Kyuubi could be influencing Naruto, whispering secrets from its past host to convince her to loosen the seal. He had entertained the thought himself, just yesterday. Mention Obito to rile Kakashi up, make him freeze with guilt and wallow in memories. It could be teaching Naruto things in her mind, tormenting her in her sleep to the point she no longer wanted to dream. He wasn't stupid, nor was he dense.

Naruto's eyes had been sagging with purple and yellow bags for the past week or so, and he had his own worries about her odd traits that appeared out of nowhere since the bridge incident. But he had also seen the unadulterated terror in her eyes when he asked her about the Kyuubi that night and knew the moment he voiced his suspicions, gone would be the grandfatherly old man. In his place would be the Hokage who lived longer than half of Konoha's shinobi put together. And he hadn't survived this long from being soft in these delicate matters, no matter who the instigator was.

Orochimaru was his one moment of weakness, and Kakashi knew it would never happen again.

It took him less than a second to answer with confidence, without batting an eye. "Hokage-sama, there has been no evidence of the seal weakening under the Kyuubi's influence."

His hand curled into a fist against the door.

He would like to say it he said it because he was worried for Naruto and trusted her like she had trusted him. He would like to say that, but Kakashi wasn't one hundred percent sure he could without lying to himself.

"I just wish it wasn't her."

With those words following him, Kakashi left the room.

**Hope you all liked it! Again, sorry for the long wait for a chapter just about relationships and characteristics... ^^; I feel bad, but I like this chapter personally sooooo (Which is a lie. I hate it. I have no idea why they're going to live together I DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY I DID THAT).**

**Any questions feel free to ask! I love reviews and comments, even just saying Echo Location would make me happy :) lol! Hopefully the next chapter will be out soon, so wish me luck!**

**So the scroll contents were revealed... anyone know what it means? ;D**

**Koby Out!**


	7. To Whom It May Concern: AN

**Just a quick AN, not to worry though it is good news (I hope!)**

**I'm not abandoning this story by any means, in fact I'm picking it back up after finals here are over (next friday! wish me luck!) and I wanted to apologize deeply for the long as all heck wait... it was cruel of me :( but before I started again, I wanted to know if any of you guys would be willing to give some quick feedback...?**

**I've recently reread through my story so far as well as most of my notes and I've been pulled to the attention of some things. 1) the story seems to be moving very slow. This particular feature of the story isn't something that will change nor do I wat it to truly change, seeing as I love slow builds and characterization, and I wanted to assure you guys we'd be getting to non-canon things soon. However before that, I wanted your feedback as to whether you wanted an insight into their training for a chapter or if you'd rather me "breeze" by that part and go to the next thing (Mission?! Chuunin exams?! M!Naruto?! Kyuubi?!). One or two main things has to happen in the next chapter by my current thought process, but the answer to this will decide the rest of the content.**

**2) Like I said, I've recently reread my chapters and there was a scene or two where I began to think that possibly all the visions (when I described them in full, specifically the scene with kids in wave) got a little... cumbersome feeling? I mainly wanted to ask you guys your thoughts on the matter if you reread or remember or whatever. Also, are the visions and the effects too much? Should I pull back on them and close them off or do you want more of them? Again, these particular questions will be affecting the next few chapters of the story that I'll be writing.**

**3) Are my descriptions and inner thoughts with Naruto too much, as in do they take up too much of the narrative or are you guys in favor of that particular style? I keep rereading to find places to maybe lessen it or change details and the like, but it's hard without feedback, so I'd be grateful for it.**

**4) I get a lot of reviews about being confused, not knowing what's going on, and while that is completely what I want and am going for I also want to be sure it isn't TOO much confusion where things are lost upon you guys... so just reassurance or the like where critisism will be looked upon thoughfully?**

**Again. Thank you all, you mean a lot to me and I apologize sincerely for my absence and your abandonment. I WILL be back and I WILL be writing I promise. and again I'm sorry, I hope you all will forgive me (especially if you thought this was a chapter and were happy).**

**This AN will be taken down in 3 or so days, maybe 5 max, but I thank you for all the future thoughtful replies if you deem me still worthy and like the story *bows***

**Koby Out**

**P.S. Also thinking about a pseudo-beta for this story...? I'm not sure how much editing I'd like, but I'd like someone to bounce chapters off of for the above reasons and to maybe even push me towards writing if I'm being lazy (because I assure you, I am lazy)**


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